A Season in Hell
by chezchuckles
Summary: "My heart has known the coup de grace. Ah! I did not foresee it." -'A Season in Hell,' Arthur Rimbaud. Prompt from Panda09: where Castle takes the bullet for Kate at the end of season three
1. Chapter 1

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

"My heart has known the coup de grace. Ah! I did not foresee it."  
-'A Season in Hell,' Arthur Rimbaud

* * *

prompt from Panda09: where Castle takes the bullet for Kate at the end of season three

 **X**

Castle slammed into her.

Her head bounced.

When Kate felt herself hit the grass, whiplash wrenched her skull even as his body collapsed over her.

She groaned. Breath was gone. Brain rattled. He was heavy, and her dress uniform constricting in the heat, and she was instantly suffocated. She smelled burnt ozone; she felt him pressing on her ribs and pelvis, achingly weighted down.

Without breath, a stillness came over the scene, a horror movie on mute, the sky wheeling, no clouds, no soundtrack, two birds working wings across the blue.

And then gasped in her breath, wheezing. A woman had screamed, was screaming. Finally the percussive came - a gunshot, delayed by the contortion of time that was Rick Castle's collision with her, and now his body was a staggering weight as the whole scene came into focus.

 _Gun._

Beckett struggled under him; he groaned. Some long-held breath it was, a groan of release. Release. Letting go. Giving up.

"Castle?" she shouted, trying to find something of him. Her voice echoed in her own ears, tinny, as if there'd been an explosion. "Castle. Castle, get up."

 _Ka-ate._ The collapse of her name in his breath had her gripping him on top of her. His head lifted, crashed down again. His mouth at her ear. _Kate, love you._

"Rick," she croaked.

Her arm was caught between them. She clutched his suit jacket with her other hand and worked herself free, brought her hand up to grip the back of his head. Sweat-damp neck, short hair, the strange give of his skin. She pulled him up to see his face. His eyes were open for only an instant, open but sinking shut. His lips slack, _Kate._

"Castle." She skimmed her hand down from his neck and immediately the blood soaked her palm, slick and hot at his upper back. "Cas-Castle." Blood pumping out of him, out of him.

Horror poured through her.

And then people's hands were gripping Castle's shoulders; it was her father and one of the pall bearers - someone - trying to move Castle off of her. She scrambled out from under him, but she kept her hands at that fleshy, wet place, horror a taste in the back of her throat that threatened to rise.

She saw his daughter struggling through the ring of funeral-goers, Martha just behind.

"Get them away," she croaked. Skimming her hands over his back, his head and torso pressed against her thighs. "Keep them. Away. Castle? No, don't turn him-"

She had a grip on his shoulder, kept them from moving him. Bullet in the back, the spine, his neck, blood soaking through his shirt now and she felt the heat of it soaking her pants. She pressed her hands harder into the entrance wound.

"Lanie?" she yelled. "Lanie, I need you-"

"I'm here, I'm here, oh, God, Kate; he's-"

"He's been shot," Kate fought. "Help me. _Help_ me."

"Put him flat, on the ground. Roll him over."

"But his back-" More hands , prying at him, ignoring her. The heave and shift - the heft of him, the sheer size as he came away from her thighs.

"Chest compressions," Lanie clipped. "Right now."

CPR; last ditch effort. But she had training. She could do this. Count.

She pressed the heel of her hand to his sternum, the other hand on top, laced her fingers together, waiting. Lanie had his head tilted back, mouth open, sweeping with her finger before lowering for that first breath.

Kate's hands were blood-soaked.

She stained everything.

 **X**

Alexis screamed at her, lunging forward. Martha violently held her back, a brittleness to her voice that wounded Beckett more than the girl's indignation. _This is not a worthwhile use of time, Alexis._

She wasn't worth it. Kate clutched her elbows and kept her arms close to her body. Half in dress blues, half out. Hair falling down over her ears and neck, hat lost in the grass, pins in the race across the cemetery with Ryan and Espo, chasing a man who'd long since gone.

She shouldn't have come like this. Straight from the chase, still blood-stained.

She'd had an update for his family about the sniper. Why had she thought they would care at all about the sniper? She wasn't bringing news that said _he's fine, this never happened._ She was superfluous.

Beckett turned back to Ryan, sharply shook her head. He nodded. She meant then to go, to push past the ED waiting room and back to the police investigation, but Ryan stopped her, standing forcibly in her way.

"Ryan-"

"No," he said very quietly. "We're at a standstill. We're waiting on fingerprints. You should - you could stay."

She actually paused. "No, his-" _daughter doesn't want me here._ "I can't."

"You could," Ryan said again, eyes so wide with innocence. He wasn't. He was just very good at playing a certain role. Why he'd been undercover in Narcotics for so long; he was the baby everyone believed. Didn't mean that it didn't work on her. Ryan gave her another eager look. "He's our partner. Someone should-"

"Yes," she got out, throat closing up again. She'd passed off-duty officers in the front lobby, and she realized now why they'd been here. Wall of blue for one of their own. He was. "He saved my life."

Ryan only studied her, as if urging her to make the right decision.

She clenched her hand around her phone. "But when the fingerprints come in-"

"You know it will be a dead end."

"What about traffic cams-?"

"Still nothing. This was a pro, boss. You heard Javi."

She nodded, swallowing past the tightness in her throat. "Text me. I'll - be here until we have something."

Ryan looked pleased with her; she wasn't doing it to please him. She wanted - craved - being out there, forward movement, doing something. But this wasn't about her. This was Castle. He was one of them, he was her partner; he had saved her life.

He had jumped in front of a bullet for her, one she hadn't even seen coming. He'd had her back; she was supposed to have his.

 _If anything happens, you'd take care of her, right?_

Ryan patted her shoulder and turned to leave, back to the precinct where all they'd be doing was wait. She clutched her elbows and realized blood still crusted the fine cracks in her skin, blood swiped at ineffectually by crime scene wipes so that it smeared pink along her inside wrist. Under her nails.

Alexis shouldn't see this.

She stepped out of the waiting room and scuttled down the hall, trying not to tremble as she looked at her phone. It was hot from being overused, in the sun, in her car - the battery was red. She texted Lanie, asking for a change of clothes, asking for an update - Lanie had gone ahead in the ambulance. And then she put her phone away. She'd have to find a sympathetic nurse with a cord, charge her phone before too long.

Castle had been shot.

Kate leaned back against the wall, tilting her head up to gulp down breath.

Castle had been shot. She'd felt the impact, she still felt the impact. Her skin was stained red just as the inside of her lids - where she saw it happen again and again.

She hadn't even _seen_ the sniper, hadn't seen it coming. Just felt herself thrust backward by force, the slam of her head-

Beckett lifted a hand and touched the swollen place at her forehead where the skin was hot - impact with his own forehead. His own body a shield.

She shivered hard and hunched in, pressing her phone to her chest as if it might help her breathe easier.

Nothing would help.

There were red fingerprints smeared on the white case.

"Detective Beckett."

She straightened up sharply and turned. Alexis was there, just down the hall with her arms crossed over her chest, blue eyes swimming. "Gram said to tell you."

Her heart dropped. "Tell me."

"He's out of surgery."

"Alive?" she gasped.

Alexis blinked tears and smeared them with her fingers. "A-alive."

Kate shook once, all she would allow herself, and then she nodded. "Thank you. For telling me."

Alexis retreated to the waiting room, still pushing her thumbs under her eyes to catch her tears. The moment she cleared the threshold, Kate sank back against the wall, sank, sank, sank, all the way down, dropping hard to the floor with her knees pressed against her chest. She put her bruised forehead to her thighs and closed her eyes.

It was supposed to have been her. Her bullet.

But he was alive.

 **X**

Beckett followed them upstairs, not sure _why_ she was, only that her feet moved after them. The nurse's directions were competent and useful, and when Martha turned the corner into the ICU waiting room, the overstuffed, industrial-fabric chairs and the scattering of well-thumbed magazines over wood-laminate tables was both heartening and depressing all in one.

Beckett stood. Out of place. Then she sat in a chair in one corner. Martha and Alexis flocked like wounded and abandoned geese during spring migration, long-necked and flapping, in tandem but getting nowhere.

He would be rolled up to ICU now. The elevators couldn't be seen from here, but there was a patient express lift that went from the Emergency Department to ICU five floors up. They wouldn't be able to see him anyway.

There was some time. Waiting, appropriately, inside the waiting room. The moments blurred. Beckett directed traffic from her phone, having to step out any time it vibrated in her numb fingers. She leaned against the wall and messaged Esposito to have another look at the cemetery grounds, and she swallowed back the urge to walk out of here.

Run. Run away. But she was tethered. Every time she paced the hall down to the visitors' elevator, so close, everything within reach, she turned without around and headed back.

She answered Ryan's call. Gave clipped instructions he had already surmised himself and instituted. He was updating her, he said; he was only letting her know where they stood.

Basically, they had nothing. Basically. Beckett still held the belief that if she was only _there_ \- at her precinct - they would have something. Something at all.

It was unfair. And delusional.

Controlling.

So she stalked back to the waiting room and hesitated on the threshold a moment too long - a nurse approached her first.

 _No, them,_ Beckett gestured. Martha and Alexis rose, brushing right by her. She sank back into that lone seat and listened, part but not a part.

His daughter and his mother would be allowed back for fifteen minutes at a time. Alexis went first, and whatever Beckett had thought might happen with Martha alone, none of that occurred. Neither of them spoke. She had never seen Martha so washed out, so blank.

Beckett sat stiffly in the chair until Alexis appeared around the corner and Martha switched off, and if she had thought Alexis would share good news with her, _he's okay, he's awake, he's breathing_ , she was sorely mistaken.

Beckett stood and hesitated when Alexis sat down, perhaps still hoping for that word, but it didn't - and it wouldn't - come. She watched the girl for one moment longer, delaying the inevitable, and then she escaped out of the lobby and headed for the elevators again.

She saw Lanie had texted her back, offering to peek at Castle's chart and look in on him, so Beckett availed herself of that favor instead. Which meant she was still in her bloodied uniform, though thankfully the dark, thick material kept the worst of it from showing. But she needed a shower, and a fresh change of clothes, and she needed to be back at the Twelfth, going after the sniper.

The man had _shot_ her partner.

She needed to know if he was okay, but she wasn't going to be allowed in on that loop. She was a detective with the NYPD, not family, and she knew her job, and she knew exactly how to do it. _That_ she could do. That she had never been found wanting, never lacked. That was her skill set, and this - whatever this was - wasn't it.

She would do her job.

Beckett hit the call button for the elevator, gathering the strands of her control with a shaky force of will.

She pulled out her phone and her thumb hovered over her list of recent messages, waiting for that old decisiveness, the moment her thoughts became clear and converted into definitive action.

 _Is he okay?_

The elevator doors opened and she didn't step on.

 _Is he breathing on his own?_

The elevator waited, timed to the considerable endeavor of a patient's laborious boarding, and she stood there, not moving.

 _Can he open his eyes?_

Beckett swallowed and let her phone go dark.

She turned and glanced down the long, wide, overly-bright hallway towards the ICU waiting room.

If she left now, if she went back to the precinct and the job she knew and knew she could excel at, if she left him now-

They would all know exactly why; they would _want_ her to. _Go catch the bastard that did this, Detective Beckett._ Alexis might actually look her in the eye when she did.

And yet.

Beckett remained in the hall, and she did not press the call button again.

But she didn't walk back to the waiting room either.

 **X**


	2. Chapter 2

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

"Kate!"

Beckett jerked as if struck, the sound of her name bouncing through the quiet waiting room. Alexis was still there, despite her grandmother's constant nudging to go home, and Martha's mouth actually dropped open at the - at the indignity.

She was sure that's what it was.

Kate felt it too. How wrong it was to speak so loudly, to show off how grief hadn't touched you.

Josh was striding through the open doorway, and Kate hastily got to her feet, holding him off even as he came. " _Kate_."

"Josh-"

"Why the hell didn't you call me? I get a page from the ED about a _cop_ and I go down there and it's your _tag-along_ -"

"What?" she croaked.

"Richard Castle. I - shouldn't be telling you this. Violates HIPPA-"

"You were the one on call?" she got out, a cry coming out of her mouth. She saw Martha heading for them and she quickly grabbed Josh's arm, steering him towards the door and out.

Couldn't do this in front of his mother. Alexis. Couldn't.

Wasn't right. Felt very wrong. Everything felt wrong since she'd pressed her hand to his blood.

"Why didn't you call me?" he hissed. "I'm working on him and all I can think about is you and if you're safe, if you've been taken to another hospital-"

"What about Castle?" she cried out, clutching his arms.

"I don't _care_ about Castle, here, Kate. I care about _you_. I got no call, nothing from you to say you're safe, to say don't worry. You _knew_ I was covering the ED today. Not even a text?"

She had forgotten. Emergency Department was just the hospital, just Josh still in town, not - it hadn't clicked.

Everything had gone out of her head but Castle.

"You did the surgery?" she asked tightly.

"No. I did an emergency - no. No. You tell me why you didn't even bother to let me know."

She could see it on his face now. How had she missed it before? For all his bleeding heart compassion for third world cleft palates and hare lips, for epidemics and earthquake relief, Josh had none for Castle.

None.

Worse. Worse, Josh seemed to dismiss Castle outright. Tag-along.

"Kate." He snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Don't do that to me. You _stay_ right here and talk to me. I deserve some answers. I've been _calling_ you-"

"My phone died," she got out finally, frowning somewhere past his shoulder. She'd been sitting inertly for the last hour, no alerts, no news, just staring at the wall and absorbing his daughter's icy displeasure. She was numb down to her bones. "My phone died. I - have you seen Castle?"

"Would you stay on point?" he yelled. "I'm talking about you and me. If you can't be bothered to let me know-"

"I can't do this," she said stiffly, holding up her hands to ward him off. She found herself taking a step back, remembering suddenly how she'd told Castle _one foot out the door._

"You better do this," Josh snapped. "I'm tired of this casual-"

"Me too," she said, nodding. "I'm tired. Tired of this." She gestured slowly between them. "Castle is important to me. You didn't come find _me_ until-" She glanced at her watch and sighed. "Until you were off shift. You couldn't reach my phone, you apparently couldn't reach the Twelfth either, because they would have gotten word to me-"

"Right."

Kate snapped a glance to him, but bitterness lined his face. She took a breath, steel in her spine. "My _partner_ has been shot. I don't know if he's going to make it through the night." Her fists clenched, heart twisting as the words left her mouth. "I can't deal with you right now."

"Deal with me."

"Can we just be done?" she said. Badly. She knew she was doing this very badly now, but she couldn't make herself care. "We tried. Didn't work. We're not cut out for this."

Josh's face clouded with thunder. He turned sharply on his heel and strode off, but then he jerked back around and pointed his finger at her. "You. You are-" His nostrils flared but he didn't say it, whatever he'd been about to say. He clenched his fists and shook his head. "I won't let you do this to me. Make me the bad guy. You want us to be over, Kate? Fine. We've _been_ over. I came back for you. I _came back_ for you. Lives - you can count the cost in people's _lives._ And that's on you."

And then he left.

She remembered how he cut short his trip in Haiti. She remembered the Dominican and the flight out of Myanmar, the clinic he didn't put on in Guatemala. Lives.

When she let out a breath and turned around, intending to go back to the waiting room - where she belonged and didn't belong - Alexis was standing there, arms crossed over her chest.

"That him?" Alexis said, her jaw set. But Kate wasn't stupid. She saw the blue filling the girl's eyes. _Tag-along_. She'd heard that too.

"No," Kate answered. "That's not him."

Not any more. Not really ever.

* * *

Beckett had sunk into a kind of no-man's land, zoned out, for the last hour. Josh's arrival had shaken her, but rather than rile her up, it had served only to sink her deeper. Nothing penetrated.

But there was always a breaking point. There had to be one now, here, something had to give.

It was Martha, apparently. She cleared her throat and Beckett glanced up, her gaze slow to focus. When it did, she saw Martha stroking Alexis's hair over her shoulder, combing through it gently, maternally. "You do him no good like this," she said.

For an instant, Beckett thought Martha was talking to _her_.

And then Alexis tried to shrug her off. "Gram-"

"Alexis," Martha said, a kind of warning, ungentle, already moving to stand. "Shower, dinner, some sleep." She held her hands out to the girl.

Alexis took one but shook her head. "I'm not hungry." She flashed a look to Beckett, but Kate kept her eyes averted, pretended she wasn't listening. She had no say in this. Any of it. She couldn't even offer advice, because she still hadn't been allowed back to see him - she didn't know if Alexis could leave with a clear conscience. Neither woman had shared the details of their fifteen minutes, and Beckett had been left in the dark.

She wasn't sure if that had been a unanimous decision on Martha and Alexis's parts, or if a doctor or nurse had made some kind of official family-only decree. Either way, Beckett felt it the same.

Jagged. Rough.

Her breaking point was close. She knew it; she could sense its approach. It was going to be ugly.

"No, I'm not hungry either," Martha sighed. "Of course not. But sleep. It's late. We'll need rest for tomorrow."

"I'm not sure how much I _can_ sleep," Alexis hedged, but she was on her feet now, standing undecidedly before the chairs. "What if he needs me?"

"You know he'll be in and out of it for a while," Martha soothed. "And visiting hours don't start until tomorrow at ten. Then we can really see him. Stay in there with him."

"But I could - I could just be here," Alexis said. Her voice was very small. She sounded like Kate felt.

"I know, darling," Martha murmured. "But it doesn't do any good."

Alexis shot another look to Kate, and then crossed her arms over her stomach like she was trying to hold everything in. "I don't want to be away for long."

Beckett closed her fists in her lap and took a breath, let it out again slowly with something like relief. They would go; Martha would take her home, take _care_ of her. It wasn't okay, but it was progress.

"I'll set an alarm," Martha said. "We'll come back early." Martha tugged and the girl came, hesitating but doing as she'd been told. Martha ushered Alexis towards the open door of the waiting room, smoothing her hands down Alexis's arms.

As they left, Martha shot Kate a staying look with no small amount of command. So of course Beckett absolutely couldn't leave.

Not that she possibly would. But now she had orders. _Be the one to stay._

She should search for a phone cord. That was paramount, with the case ongoing and the boys working through the night, no doubt. Time to get up, get out of the chair, out of the waiting room now that the eyes of his family weren't on her, judging, finding her lacking.

She stood and paused in the open doorway, watching until the elevator opened and swallowed the two women. When she finally stepped out into the hall, it felt like passing through cold wet cobwebs, dewed by night terror, clammy fingers brushing across her face.

She found it hard to breathe. She was moving from waiting room to pacing purgatory, that was all.

Beckett stalked the long hallway back and forth for two turns until she could finally push herself past the first junction and down to the nurse's station. It dawned on her as she approached that she was still in her dress uniform, but it immediately garnered attention. The middle-aged woman standing before one of the computer stations stopped what she was doing and came around.

"Are you okay, ma'am?"

Beckett blinked, slow to comprehend, and then she held up her pone. "I was wondering if I could borrow a charger? I need it for work," she tried. Her voice sounded strange. Raw.

"Of course. Janey, see if you can rustle up something. We're always finding cords and stuff left around here." The nurse was friendly, straight-forward, not a lot of fuss. "We'll get you charged right up."

"While - while I'm here?" Kate started. "Are there any updates on Richard Castle?"

There was a fast glance between the nurses and Beckett felt distinctly the stiffness in her dress uniform and where the blood had dried against her thighs. She should have changed first. She should have gone home herself and showered and gotten a handle on all this - all this terror rolling in her guts.

"Okay, ma'am," the nurse said quietly, taking her arm. She reached for Beckett's phone and slid it from Kate's fingers without her even protesting. "Leave this here. Janey found a charger. Janey?"

The phone was passed over the nurses' counter and a smiling woman took it; Beckett could see her plugging in the phone. The screen lit with the red of the low battery.

"All right, Officer-"

"Detective," she croaked. "Beckett."

"Detective Beckett?" Another look around that Kate couldn't identify, but Janey gave a short nod in return and now Beckett was being led farther away. "All right, Detective Beckett, if you'll come with me-"

"Where?" she said, her heart flipping strangely. "Where are we going?"

"Just to the staff bathroom. It's okay."

"No, I'm-"

"I'll scrounge you up some scrubs - pants at least. Walking around here like that." The nurse was shaking her head even as she led Beckett down the hall and through a doorway. Glass windows on either side showed the kitchen table, a fridge, and Beckett realized she was in a staff break room.

"I couldn't possibly take-"

"Yes, you can. And when you change and clean up, I'll take you to his room."

Beckett stopped dead.

"While your phone is charging," the nurse said with a short nod. "I'll come get you when it's done - so whatever time that gives you. Good amount, I would think, seeing as how it was so dead."

She had to breathe to speak. "Thank you."

"I'll find you something to change into. Be right back."

Kate fumbled at the buttons of her dress jacket, her hands shaking, everything shaking.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

She was wearing a pair of too-large of scrub pants, a shocking surgical yellow. The nurse had not found a top, but Beckett unbuttoned a few buttons of her dark dress shirt, left it unkempt. It was stiff with blood, but it had dried, and she was able to use paper towels to clean the rust-stains off her stomach where it had soaked through.

She slowly unknotted the dark uniform necktie from her collar, tugged it out. Lacking anything better to do with it, she wadded it up small and threw it away in the trash can. The tie unspooled as it dropped, fluttering almost in slow motion, collapsing at the bottom.

Beckett splashed water over her face, rubbed off her mascara where it had smudged. She felt better just for that, the clean water and the scrubbed feeling, and though her hands remained clammy, she stood straighter as she waited in the hall outside the staff room. The nurse approached and introduced herself as _Kate_ , and now there was the dissonance of following the woman back through the hall to the ICU cluster, Kate after Kate.

Castle didn't have a private room, not in the ICU, but tomorrow, the nurse assured her, he would be moved up to recovery. For now, Beckett waited for the nurse to come back through those doors and give her the okay to enter. The other Kate was sneaking Beckett inside past the other nightshift nurse, way past visiting hours.

She flinched when the door swung open. The nurse gestured her inside, went ahead of her down the center aisle. Beckett noted that the ICU cluster was spread out in a half-circle, roughly eight pods configured around the central nurses' station. She had counted five other clusters behind doors down the hall they'd walked from the staff break room, but the nurse had assured her that Castle was in a rather secluded section, only two others in his cluster.

Beckett saw the nurse take two long strides and veer to the left, and then she was pulling back a curtain half drawn around a bed.

And there was her partner.

Beckett stopped in her tracks, horrified by the sight of him, swollen and malformed, in traction to immobilize his spine, brace wrapped around his neck, his face discolored.

The nurse nodded towards the bed and Beckett went, dutifully, already regretting her presence here. When she got to his side, she reached out a tentative hand and traced the shadow of the IV line at the inside of his elbow.

"There was perforation to the dura matter of the spinal cord," the nurse began quietly, "but the surgeons got it repaired. They're keeping him in traction overnight to make sure it heals and his spinal fluid levels don't drop. He may complain of headaches tomorrow, and if he does, you let the nurse know - it means he has a puncture wound deeper than we expected."

Beckett nodded, swallowing thickly.

"They removed bullet fragments from his upper thoracic and lower cervical spaces, where they were infringing on nerve roots from the spinal column, but the main core of the bullet they left."

"They _left_?" she croaked.

"It's common," the nurse said placatingly. "You go digging around for a bullet, the damage you do can be far greater."

"It won't hurt him?"

"No, it's lodged just under the trapezius, which is here-" The nurse touched the back of Kate's neck and dragged her fingers out along her shoulder. "And there are some sensitive nerve roots there that shouldn't be damaged more than they are."

"But the bullet won't work its way into those nerves?"

"It shouldn't. But of course his specialists will want to keep an eye on it. If he has any pain or numbness in his hands or fingers, then be sure to bring that to the doctor's attention. He can have another surgery once he's stable enough."

"Okay," she whispered. Her fingers slid around his elbow and she pressed her thumb lightly against a discoloration where a bruise had formed. All these bruises, and she didn't know what from. Trauma.

"I've explained this to his mother and daughter, but I'm not sure how well they were listening."

Beckett's head jerked up. "Probably - not so well." It was on her now. "He goes up to recovery tomorrow morning and then what?"

"Pain management. The surgeon will come by and check his function, possible nerve damage. Monitoring of his spinal fluid to make sure we got everything."

"He's not on a - a vent? He'll wake and breathe and - and wake up?"

"No vent, and that's very good. He came naturally up from the anesthesia, but it takes a while to sleep off. He might be confused the first few times he wakes, and he probably won't remember it. As the anesthesia wears off, he'll grow more cogent. Until he's aware, the traction will keep him from moving and feeling the nerve endings."

"Is it bad? Nerve damage." He wouldn't remember... what? Anything?

"We don't know, Detective Beckett. We'll have to wait for him to tell us."

She nodded, fingers cupping the back of his elbow. "It doesn't hurt him? Lying on his back where he was shot?"

"No, he's propped up. Foam wedges, plus the traction," the nurse said, shifting around the side to indicate the small space between Castle's back and the bed. Beckett hadn't seen that before.

"Okay, good," she said, nodding. She had to remember all of this; she wished suddenly for her detective's notebook and a pen. "And thank you for telling me. I don't want to get you in trouble-"

"You're listed on his emergency contact," the nurse said. "It's in the chart. He signed a form who knows how long ago. You're not family, but sometimes it's not about blood."

Kate swallowed hard, forcing it down, everything, and she nodded again. She found herself staring at Castle in the bed, how bad he looked. How _bad_ he looked.

"There's no chair," the nurse said quietly. "I'm sorry. Against the rules to have furniture around the pods. But he's in traction, Detective. Can't hurt him if you sit carefully."

On the bed.

Beckett turned to look at the nurse, and the other Kate nodded in helpfulness towards the mattress, and a conveniently blank space near Castle's calves.

"Okay," Beckett said. "Thank you."

And then she sat very gingerly on the bed, shaking all over again.

 **X**

She wasn't sure she wouldn't hurt him.

She was pretty certain, in fact, that she could. Hurt him. Most assuredly.

She wondered how much she _had_ already, how many times, how dark and hard a truth it'd been for him, and how he had carried it like a thorn, carried it until that moment in the cemetery with his blood draining out of him - and then he'd given it to her to carry.

It was heavy over her, a weight. She wasn't sure she could do this alone.

She pulled a knee up on the mattress, balancing herself with one toe on the floor, and she leaned in over his torso, her ribs tight. "Don't leave me alone," she whispered to him. Not even sure she ought to. She probably shouldn't. Alexis wasn't happy with her.

Well, of _course_ she wasn't. She might lose her father. Oh, how tragic and terrible the world, how sickeningly familiar, a parent lost because of this case. Because of _this case._

Kate bowed her head, pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Darkness flashed, lit up by the virulent orange and yellow pinwheels of pressure. Black made over by false flares. The night behind her eyes was lighted by the neon city inside her sorrow.

She lifted her head, jaw set. Pity was pathetic. And unhelpful. And taken for weakness.

Castle was deeply still. Asleep, she reminded herself. The nurse had said asleep. He might wake a few times and then be aware, but he was sleeping now.

She closed her hands in fists and crossed her arms, holding herself up, not willing to keep reaching for him.

Her determination lasted for the space of a beat on the monitor, and the she unfolded her arms and took his non-IV hand.

She really - she could really use a smile right now. Just one of those crooked, hair flopping over his forehead, kind of self-deprecating smiles. But wouldn't be smiling, not after all day surgery and bullet fragments and nerve root damage and bleeding _I love you_ over her.

Kate let out a ragged breath and gritted her teeth, closing her eyes again. Better not to look.

 _Just don't look._

"And you too?"

Kate's eyes flashed open. She rose up on one knee and peered at his face - he was lying prone in the ICU bed, in traction and his neck in a brace so he couldn't move his head - but his eyes were open. Blank stare. Lashes gold in the faint nightlight coming through the curtain.

"Castle?" she said quietly. Not a whisper, because she was a little desperate to have him answer, but not calling his name either, not wanting to drag him into consciousness if he was in pain. "Castle."

A garbled noise came out of his chest and then a long, sighing exhalation. She shifted closer, putting a hand beside his elbow and hovering above him. In case he needed to see a familiar face.

His eyes were unfocused, rolling back. She reached out her free hand and lightly touched his swollen cheek with two fingers. "Castle?"

"Cut the grass," he mumbled.

Confusion. The nurse had warned her. But it still bit right through the thick-skin of her heart and sank its teeth deep. "It's okay, Castle," she murmured. "We'll cut the grass." She felt like stone.

His eyes sank to hers, his eyelids seemed to fall heavily, his face slack and yellow-white and swollen. She swallowed hard to keep it back, took her hand away from his cheek - though she couldn't help skimming the air above his torso, as if performing some kind of ritual for healing.

"Toast bread, Beckett."

Her gaze jerked back to his and one corner of his lips were curled up like a smile. Even though she knew better - she knew it was just word salad as his brain sloshed in the remainders of the anesthesia - her heart rose, lifting up into her throat.

"Yes, I'll do that," she said, smiling terribly through every breath. Smiling so hard her whole body ached. "Anything you need, Rick."

"Murmurs," he sighed and his eyes fluttered and came open. He blinked once, twice, and then his lids dropped hard and he was gone. Just like that.

 _Murmurs._

Well, okay, she could do that.

Kate leaned in over him once more, but it wasn't close enough - there was too much distance for everything to get lost. She had to ease her weight off the mattress and onto one foot, untuck her knee, and then stand by the head of his bed.

Once she was there, she gently touched his bangs that were falling into his eyes, pushed them back. When she leaned in this time, her nose accidentally brushed his cheek. Electric.

But it was close enough that her words might find him, even through the veil of darkness between them.

"I'll tell you exactly what you want to hear, Castle. The moment you wake for real."

 **X**


	4. Chapter 4

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

She wasn't sure how she had managed to fall asleep, only that she was yanked back into awareness when her body pitched forward.

Beckett jerked upright, swiped under her eyes to remove the crusts of mascara where her lashes had clumped in the late hour. She felt like Cinderella, long past midnight, falling to pieces as her falsified confidence shrank to pumpkins and mice around her.

She shifted to wake herself up, moving before she quite realized. Her knee jarred his thigh and she stiffened, pulling her hands down to stare in horror at his body lying mutely in the hospital bed.

That horror was slow to leave her, especially as his lashes fluttered, the numbers on the monitor ticking upwards. His eyes rolled so that she saw the movement under his lids, and Beckett laid an unsteady hand on his thigh, her thumb at the spot where her knee had caught him.

She slid very carefully off of the mattress, not quite releasing a breath until she had both feet on the floor.

It seemed like a different world from this angle. She was disoriented. The floor tilted sharply towards her and she caught herself with a hand on the mattress, wincing at her exhaustion. Beckett rolled her head on her neck and flexed her toes, tried to wake herself up.

Her eyes were gritty, aching from staring at him for a sign, a change, for just one breath of difference. Every time Castle's fingers twitched or his hand spasmed, her heart would catch. But she was too exhausted now for hope.

Just like that girl of cinders, she ought to make a run for it. Should have done so hours ago. But her feet didn't move.

No, she wouldn't move. She wouldn't leave him to spend the night alone, even if he never knew she'd been here.

Castle had taken a bullet meant for her. Her bullet. Duty drew her now. (And the feel of his blood welling up between her fingers. The look on his face as he struggled to see her, to stay, to _say_ one last thing.)

(No, not the last.)

(Not the last of him.)

Beckett removed her hand from the mattress, and his eyes slid open.

She froze.

His groan rattled his chest but merely ghosted the room, all that work for no sound. His jaw worked and then his tongue gave a slow lick of his bottom lip where blood had dried. Smashing into her forehead.

His head turned and his eyes cast along the half-closed curtain, down to the railing where his hand lifted and fumbled.

Beckett surged forward and caught his fingers before he could tug at anything. She squeezed, unthinkingly.

He squeezed back.

"Castle," she whispered, stepping up to the side of his bed.

His eyes trailed over her loosely; she didn't know how much was seen and how much not seen. So blue, those eyes, but blurred, smudged, like a veil had been dropped over him. He kept her hand though, or he allowed her to keep his - or more likely, he didn't know either - and she brought the back of his hand against her hip and kept him there.

"Go back to sleep, Castle," she told him. Her cop voice. Beckett knew he would obey, and he did, closing his eyes.

His fingers went slack.

And then tears crashed through her. Freefalling down her cheeks for one terrifying sob of breath - and then Beckett had it under control again.

She turned her face away and dashed at the tears with her free hand, inhaling hard, tilting her chin up, keeping her head back, blinking.

And into this came the tightening of his fingers around hers, squeeze and squeeze again, and when she jerked her head around to look at him, his eyes were open.

 **X**

He stayed this time. Stayed awake. But it wasn't him. It was like sleep-walking - this sleep-staring.

For long, terrifying moments, he just watched her, his eyes somehow not focused even as he studied her. As if he didn't know her, as if the very form of her was stranger to him.

It made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

It made her clam up, his eyes watching her with so little awareness behind them. Almost like someone else stared out from behind his face. She stood very still beside the hospital bed and wouldn't move her hand from his - he kept squeezing, and she squeezed back, echoing his pattern if there even was one.

And then Castle's eyes closed, softly, like wings folding in.

Beckett let out a shaky breath and lifted her free hand to her face, touched the dried salt of her tears. She realized she was still gripping his hand and she let him go, released his fingers to shuffle away from the bed.

She turned her back to him, hand scraping her hair off her face, holding it on top of her head as she swallowed past the ache in her throat. She paced the length of the curtain and took another, deeper breath, _it's fine, he's fine, it's fine,_ and then she turned to come back.

His eyes were open again.

"Castle?"

Open, staring, fixated on her. No sound out of his mouth, not even an attempt at communication. Her breaths were ragged as she stared back at him.

"Castle," she tried again, but even his name was weak in her mouth.

Staring. It was excruciating, all of his vibrant self fogged by the veil of anesthesia and trauma that had fallen between them, and she could do nothing at all to get to him. (Words. Speak. _Say_ something.) His fingers twitched and that slow drift behind his eyes made her cross her arms over her chest, hugging her elbows tight against her ribs.

As if in protection.

His breath came out on a heavy exhale and his eyes drooped.

"Rick," she choked out, leaning forward.

His eyes came open again. Drifted. Settled on her.

A rumble in his chest.

She caught his hand as his fingers twitched and she squeezed.

A hiss of breath that had her name on it. "Kate."

"Yeah," she said, clearing her throat as she nodded, foolishly relieved. His eyes weren't quite able to focus on her. "Castle?"

Another grumble in his chest before he came up with a slow nod. "Yeah."

She let out another unsteady breath and tried to smile. His eyes caught on hers and held.

"Yeah," she repeated, smiling again. Did she have no words? "You here with me?"

"Here." A mumble and his eyes failed to connect.

She enfolded his hand in both of hers. "Yeah? Or are you just repeating the one word you hear?"

A slow blink. His mouth moved like he was chewing marbles. A spark in his eyes. "No."

She let out a laughing breath, squeezed his hand.

He squeezed back, very hard.

"Hey," she whispered, stunned. His eyes still seemed - strange. A thin barrier between them despite the occasional spark that came flaring up out of the darkness. Like he hadn't quite made it back. "Hey, you hear me, huh? Having trouble getting your words out?"

A fierce squeeze of her hand, and maybe she was projecting, but it felt desperate.

"It's okay," she said, leaning in to comb the bangs off his forehead. His eyes drooped but stayed open. She watched him. "You're going to be fine. It's the anesthesia. The nurse said you'd be confused for a while."

That was too much, she saw. He hadn't comprehended any of that.

She scooted in closer, laid her hand on his shoulder, still squeezing his fingers even as his own grip weakened. "It's okay," she tried again, lowering her voice. Soothing. "It's okay, Castle."

A clutch of his hand was her response this time.

"I got your back," she told him. "Partners. You're okay. You know I won't let anything happen to you."

His jaw shifted and his mouth opened; she heard the grunt in his chest as he made such an effort.

And then he spoke.

"Paperwork."

She laughed, leaning in so close to him that she touched a light kiss to his cheek.

His hand gripped hers, gripped and gripped until unconsciousness overtook him and his fingers fell loose again.

She was arrested where she stood, stooped, her mouth inches from his skin.

 **X**


	5. Chapter 5

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

 _I could use a drink._

The thought formed all at once and yet came in halting temperance out of his mouth. Cracked into the white space beyond his eyelids.

Words not even spoken, only collected at the end of his breath.

"Dad?"

The effort of will and concentration that would plan the body movement that would open his eyes wasn't there. White had flaked inside his head, fierce white. Iced over. Headache.

Thinking made him tired. Moving became necessary, a push to break the ice.

"Richard, darling, please be careful."

Something had caught him in the back. Something had dug its talons into his back and snatched him up out of his existence to soar over and above the clouds, flying high, the sun fierce and over-bright and blinding. No matter the lovely view and the dizzying height, there was still that hook under his right clavicle that made his teeth grind and put his bones out of joint.

"Dad, please, don't try to move."

The ice had to be broken. Ice had to be shattered. White and painful.

Something cracked open - but it wasn't an eyelid. A groan was dredged up from somewhere. Why was everything in passive voice?

The world came back to him in a rush, and Rick Castle jerked inward, as if his muscles were constricting rather than following his orders. His eyes broke open and the room filled the void in a wild cacophony of visual sound, twin flames of orange and three streaks of white, before finally juddering into place.

Daughter. Mother. Hospital room.

His fingers twitched against a stiffly starched sheet. A thin blanket covered his legs. It hurt to breathe. Passive voice no longer; the pain was active and riding the wave of his awakening with a steely edge.

The edge of flaring white, the circle of sun reflecting sharply back into his eyes, and then gone again. He saw only a normal morning through a narrow window, and the concern of his family around him.

His mouth formed words without him. "Beckett." _Get down-_

She'd been shot. She was down. She was-

"She left this morning," his mother said quietly.

Alexis snapped her head to Martha and not even Castle missed it - all the edges in the room, the corners too sharp to touch. Everything had broken edges, everything was cracking ice and flinty cold.

He was so tired.

"Shot," he said numbly. His mouth felt thick. "Bullet-"

"They've left it in your back," his mother said, spearing him with a disapproving look. As if it was his fault.

Oh, it was his fault. He dove. He had dived. He was not conjugating verbs cleanly. Narration had abandoned him. What was his back? "Did Beckett-"

"Detective Beckett is fine," Alexis ground out.

Oh. Painful glass, grinding. The hospital room tilted and everything slid sideways; he flailed to catch himself; the kaleidoscope spun. Castle blinked-

 **X**

-the world shivered like a bubble before it might pop-

 **X**

-the hook in his skeleton jerked-

 **X**

-his body went spasmed and fell to earth-

 **X**

-his eyes opened.

It was night.

The room was darkness.

No moon, no stars, only the thin and sharp beam from the partially closed door where the hall's fluorescents cut across the floor. With its difficult light, he could see the outline of his daughter's shoulder where she had crumpled awkwardly to sleep in a chair, childishly cramped. His mother was a narrow shadow on a coat pushed against the black window.

Quiet was a held breath in the room, a waiting.

Rick Castle was awake, but his body was heavy. He felt enslaved to the bed, the darkness pressing down on him. He had the peculiar sensation that he'd still be in a drugged unconsciousness if something hadn't dragged him up.

Like the snick of the door opening.

Like the sudden sharp hallway light.

Castle struggled to sit up straight the second the hallway light expanded and raced across the floor; Castle fell back on his shoulder, canted by some kind of wedge under his back, his breath caught by the smooth edges of dull pain.

But he was distracted by the quiet entrance of a man.

The silhouette found sharp edges in the scream of light behind him, found clarity in the negative space of his form. The man was wearing a doctor's lab coat, but he was not a doctor. He was not a doctor.

His mouth was a thin, flat line. His eyes held no inflection. He was an older gentleman carefully groomed, as if the manners and expensive haircut hid a portrait in the attic made decrepit by its owner's real soul.

He was not a doctor. He made no effort to pretend otherwise, studying Castle.

Castle cleared his throat to find his voice. "Who are you?" He was distinctly aware of his daughter, his mother, asleep and vulnerable, within striking distance - within shouting distance.

The older man didn't look at them, didn't seem to notice them, but in a precise and specific way, as if he were underlining the fact that this conversation wasn't for them, wasn't about them. Castle knew instinctively that calling his attention to those two would be tantamount to drawing them into this.

He would not do that. He was the one who had jumped in front of a bullet, his decision.

"Who I am isn't relevant," the man said. His voice held a weight to it that belied his out-of-thin-air appearance in the night. His voice made the nightmare real. "But you can call me John Smith."

"Right," Castle sighed. His throat was raw and he needed water.

"I was a friend of Captain Montgomery's," John Smith said. "He sent me a package. Only I didn't receive it in time to do you much good."

 _Beckett._

Castle closed his hands into fists to keep from betraying him. He wasn't the one who had been shot at, and he still didn't know - he didn't know anything. Was she being protected? (She would brush off a police escort; she would tell the two assigned to her to go home; he _knew_ her. How many other bullets were out there with her name on them?)

"Mr. Castle, are you listening? I was a friend of Roy Montgomery's - and now you need me to be yours."

He could really use a drink.

Castle smoothed his hands flat over the mattress and tried to anchor himself. "What do you want?"

"It's not what I want, Mr. Castle. It's what you want."

 **X**


	6. Chapter 6

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

The door closed and the room was sealed in darkness.

But the frantic thump of his heart pulsed in his back like fire, and the adrenaline still burned - bright and clear - after Smith had gone.

Castle used it now, shifting his legs until he'd gotten a knee up and then rolling to his uninjured left side. He pushed off with his forearm braced in the mattress, gritting his teeth as the sweat broke out, clammy and slick on his skin. The pain was there, it was there alright, but so was everything else.

Smith, Beckett, the Dragon, her mother stabbed to death in an alley for asking too many questions. The glint of light in the cemetery, knowing her life was in the cross-hairs. It was all there.

He was shaking. He was going to throw up; that was urgent. That was first, _sorry, Beckett_ , and he lurched over the side of the bed and vomited. Head was ringing, and his mouth was filled with saliva, and it came over him again, throwing up until his stomach was cramped and twisting.

Castle clung to the bedside railing, sucking in breaths that tasted sour, barely able to hold himself up against the agony. A hot band tightened around his back, cracking his bones and sending fire through his lungs.

Beckett.

More important than this.

Castle gripped the railing and dug his elbow into the mattress, grunting as it shot like an arrow into his back. What had happened to the good drugs? This was going to kill him before he got a chance to even reach the phone.

Castle groaned when his leg fell over the side. He had to angle his foot away from the mess, and his arm dragged limply in the sheets as he moved. Huh, that couldn't be good. Nothing about this was good; he had to call Beckett. She wasn't safe. She might be - if it worked - but alone out there, running after the guy who'd taken a shot at her-

"Dad?!"

Castle jerked around at the sound of his daughter's voice, groaned and slammed his eyes shut on the sight of her sitting upright in the chair.

"Dad, what are you doing?" she whispered urgently in the darkness.

"I need - a phone," he growled, gritting his teeth against the terrible agony winding around his chest. His ribs were ley lines of pain. "Phone, Alexis."

"Dad, you can't sit up. You're supposed-"

" _Phone_."

She jumped up and came at his back, his bad side, and at least the vomit was on this side, at least-

"Dad, I'll call whoever you want me to call, just lie back down. Were you sick, Dad? Lie down."

He might have to, regardless if he wanted to. But not right this second.

Castle dragged his good arm across the bedding and dumped the blanket on the floor over the sick, just in case, and then he got a foot to touch the tile.

"No," Alexis shot forward, grabbed his shoulder.

Castle barked in pain, swayed, felt his knee beginning to collapse.

"Dad," she pleaded, scrambling up onto the bed and catching him under his good shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Just, just don't move. Don't move. Don't move."

She sounded terrified. He hadn't meant to do that. "Phone," he got out. His chest was on fire, every breath. He sank against the side of the bed, Alexis hugging his back to hold him upright. "Phone."

"Okay, okay, Daddy, okay. Here, here's mine-"

She was shoving her pink-encased phone towards him, the screen lit up and bright blue with some photo from school as her background (he'd never seen this one), incongruous in his shaking hand. He touched the app with his thumb and everything shook, his breath burning fire.

Beckett was in her contacts; it was only a matter of touching the name and making the call. Even as it began to ring, black spots popped in front of his eyes.

The ringing had barely begun when it cut off with a click, and then a breath, even through the digital void. He could feel her like she was standing right there. "Alexis? What's wrong?"

"No," he croaked. "It's me. Ca-"

"Castle!"

Uh-oh. "Think I'm gonna pass out," he mumbled.

And then he did.

 **X**

Something woke him.

Alexis was sitting beside his bed. She wasn't looking at him; she had turned stony before a presence shadowing the doorway.

"Beckett," he slurred. His mouth wouldn't work. Alexis jerked and turned back to him, apparently surprised to see him awake. Beckett came forward one step and stopped. His mouth wouldn't work. He was supposed to say something.

"Dad?"

"Mm-hm, me," he mumbled. Awake, not awake. His mouth was loose. "Meds."

His mother now, hovering close. "Do you still hurt, Richard? You tore stitches-"

"Do you need more drugs, Dad?" Alexis asked.

"No," Beckett said. Her eyes moved among them, though he thought she seemed to linger on him. "No, he's on a high dose right now, Alexis. I just talked to his doctor. Little fuzzy, I'm sure."

"Duckling," Castle heard himself say.

Beckett's lips quirked. His eyes drooped in relief. Supposed to say something. His head didn't feel right, lips were rubber.

Alexis sighed, but she stood up from the bed and moved to where his mother was sitting, still and white-faced, uncharacteristically subdued. She looked bad; he'd scared them. He had only needed to get Beckett. Talk to Beckett. Supposed to tell her something.

"Castle? Do you remember trying to call me?"

His throat worked and he opened his eyes, and suddenly the early morning light cut across the room and sliced the floor like the fluorescents had last night. "Beckett," he croaked. His fingers spasmed and she reached for him.

She put her hand over his and squeezed; his heart squeezed just as hard in his chest and he glanced to his mother and daughter. "Can you - give us - Mother, can you-"

"Of course, yes. Alexis, come along, let them talk."

"What? But, Dad-"

"Alexis," he grit out. This was more important; it involved her too. All of them. If he didn't tell Beckett, if he didn't get her on board with this, if she couldn't _stop_ -

Alexis flounced out. His mother stood to go after her, but Martha stopped long enough to embrace the detective. Beckett stiffened at first, but her arms came around his mother's thin shoulders. She released the woman and his mother left, but Beckett's hand came back to his and he squeezed, tightening until she looked at him again.

Her face broke out into a smile, soft and filling her eyes so that he was surprised by it. She was clinging to his hand. "Those were some shenanigans last night, Castle."

"Had to call you," he croaked. His voice sounded bad; his throat felt worse - probably from being sick last night. His back was numb but it felt like a deep breath might waken the pain.

"Had to call me," she murmured. "Next time, wake up your daughter." Her hand squeezed over his. "She might fight you on it, but I'm sure you can talk her into it."

"Fight me?" he mumbled, confused by the words, confused more by the radiance on her face. Alight. "No, I - wasn't thinking straight."

He frowned and tried to think straight _now_ , but it was difficult to gather the thoughts together. The man from last night seemed entirely ridiculous, and hazy, and their encounter was the thing of nightmares.

But he gripped Beckett's hand and tried to will it back. The words. "I have to tell you-"

"You don't have to say anything," she murmured. She was so close now that his vision was filled with her; she blocked out the whole room. "I know, Castle."

"You do? Did he call you - talk to you too?"

Her face crashed, collapsed into confusion. "What?" Her fingers wriggled out from his grip, arms crossing over her chest.

"Smith," he got out. His chest ached at the look on her face. "John Smith. He came to see me last night."

"Wait. Who?"

"Old friend of Montgomery's."

Everything wiped clean from her face. Everything. Gone.

"Beckett," he got out, hooking two fingers in her belt loop. "You can't go after the shooter. You have to stop - you have to stop or they're going to kill you."

 **X**


	7. Chapter 7

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

Beckett was quiet. He was wordless now that it was all out of him, Smith, the confrontation last night, the _deal_ the man had made for their lives. And Beckett just stalked the narrow room and said nothing.

She paced, moving between his bed and the door, and he knew he had only a few more minutes to convince her before his mother and daughter returned.

And they couldn't be part of this.

"Beckett-"

She spun around and went on the attack, leaning hard against the foot of the bed, gripping his ankle. "Why are you doing this, Castle?"

Ouch. Tightly. "He was aiming - ow, Beckett - aiming for you."

Beckett sank back, letting go of him, and turned around like she might leave.

"Beckett, he was aiming for you and I-" Castle cut off, wincing as he pulled something trying to reach her. He shouldn't reach for her; he was skating a thin edge between drugged-oblivion and full-bore agony, and reaching out had been a terrible idea.

"Castle." She'd come back. A hand to his non-injured side, a soft push to recline again. His spine twisted with a flicker of the old pain, and he let out a grunt. "Lie down, would you?"

"Yeah, all right. Just-" He opened an eye and caught her arm with a hard grip. "Stop pacing away from me."

She bristled, but it washed right over her face and was gone. He didn't know what she was thinking, never had, and it was usually such a fun challenge, sounding her depths. Not right now.

Right now, he just needed her to agree to the deal. He was too tired to fight. He was just tired of all of it. "He would've killed you, Kate."

She flinched, but she stayed. "I... I do know that." Her hand was on his uninjured shoulder, smoothing the hospital gown over and over again. "You took a bullet for me, Castle."

"I was only trying to-" He didn't know. Save her life, for sure. But it wasn't that he'd thought the bullet would catch him instead. "I'd rather it be me laid up than you."

Her eyes flicked hard to his. "I'm the cop, Castle, not you. It's my job to take-"

"It's not about that," he muttered. He realized he was whining, but that wasn't really in his control right now. "We're partners, aren't we?"

She had her head down, her fingers ticking now at the clean blanket some nurse had given him. Kate didn't answer.

He cleared his throat again, tried to pull himself together. "Kate? Are we not partners or-"

"Partners," she said fiercely, her eyes now blazing on his. "Castle - how much do you remember?"

He blinked. "Am I forgetting something?" She wouldn't speak, just pressed her lips into a thin line, so he tried to drag it up for her, what was left of that afternoon. "I saw the flare of sunlight on glass and I knew. I knew what it was. Knew it was too good to be true, Montgomery putting an end to it. I guess I expected there to be trouble. So I jumped."

"And?" she said. Her eyebrows knit together.

"And - all the breath left me. No, first, I tackled you. Hit the ground, then the breath left me. I don't know. I guess I..."

"You were bleeding," she said. She lifted her hand to her forehead and rubbed at what he saw was a bruise.

He caught her elbow to pull her hand down. "Did I do that?"

She blinked and glanced to her fingers, then to him. "Chin hit me. Going down."

"I don't remember that," he sighed. Something passed over her face. "Kate?"

Her lips twisted into a strange smile. "Yeah. Sounds like a lot of it is a blur for you. But I, unfortunately, won't forget any of it. Burned on my brain." Her smile fell off her face.

He stayed silent as he watched her. She dropped her hand but caught his fingers, squeezed. Three times, as if she couldn't figure out what else to say.

Castle squeezed back, echoing her rhythm. Beckett let out a breath and gave him a firmer smile. "I was there," she said finally. "And I remember. Which is why I-" She swallowed and something about the way her eyes darted away made him nervous.

"Beckett?"

Her spine straightened. "I want to meet him. This Mr. Smith. I'm not saying I'm giving this up - there is still someone out there who nearly killed you-"

"Aiming for _you_ ," he insisted.

She flashed him a glare. "But until I talk to this Mr Smith, I make no promise."

"But?"

"But - for now - I'll stop."

Castle let out a long breath, relief cascading through him so sharply he felt dizzy. "Good," he croaked out. "Thank God." That had been infinitely easier than he'd expected - and she hadn't even walked out on him for asking her to quit.

"We're at a dead end anyway," she whispered.

Castle's eyes popped open and he gripped her hand even as she tried to release him. "A dead end?"

Beckett's jaw worked. "I've been at the precinct since they moved you to the unit. I've been trying to-" She shook her head. "Nothing. We got nothing, Castle. No forensics, no prints, not a single damn trace."

"But that's good," he cried out. "Isn't it? Makes it easy to stop, you don't even have to lie."

Beckett flinched.

He tugged on her hand and realized, with some surprise, that he still had a hold of it. She was holding his hand?

Well, he had nearly died. She was giving him one.

"Castle, you don't remember anything else?"

"No, I barely saw anything. A flash of light, Beckett. No face, nothing." He frowned as she glanced towards the door. He knew his mother and daughter would show up at any moment, and the ache in his back had begun to dig in, claws and teeth, but he kept her hand and tugged on her again. "Beckett?"

She was chewing on her bottom lip. He hadn't seen that particular move in a while, and it tugged on him. There was something she wasn't telling him. About the shooting.

"Kate. What's going on?"

She shifted on her feet and her head came up. Her eyes were suspiciously shiny, and it knocked the breath out of him, the words right out of his mouth. All he could do was stare at her.

"Rick," she said. Her voice was barely audible. And then she straightened up again and frowned. "You took a bullet for me. And I..."

Beckett trailed off, rubbed two fingers at that bruise on her forehead. Castle squeezed her other hand, hoping to give her whatever words she was looking for.

"I'm doing this all wrong," she whispered. "This isn't how I wanted..."

"It's okay. We don't have to get this guy now," he answered her. "We bide our time, Kate. We _will_ get him, but we have to be smart."

Beckett laughed, rather desperately, and dropped her hand to cover her mouth. He didn't think it was funny, really, but evidently she saw something comical about his earnest belief.

She had kicked him out of her apartment the last time they'd had this fight. At least now he wasn't going anywhere.

Well, but she might. He gripped her hand tighter just in case.

"No, Castle," she sighed. Her shoulders slumped. "That's not what I was going to say." Just looking at her, struggling to gather herself together, it made him hurt. It made him hurt and it was nothing the drugs could touch.

He had the urge to apologize, but he didn't know about what.

"Actually, I was going to say - I was going to say that when you were shot, and I watched the lights go out in your eyes..."

"I'm not dead," he said, gripping her hand fiercely, wishing he had the strength to reach across and grab her other hand. Grab her. "I'm okay - going to be okay, Beckett."

She nodded. "You are. And I promised myself - promised you - I'd be honest."

"Okay. I-"

"Shut up, Rick," she muttered, shaking her head. "I'm - in love with you."

Castle's mouth dropped open.

And then his daughter and mother entered the room, arguing loudly, pleasantly over cafeteria food.

Kate's face flushed and her mouth snapped shut.

 **X**


	8. Chapter 8

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

Alexis came inside his hospital room and behind her was a nurse. His mother was making a sweeping gesture towards his bed, but Castle had lost precious seconds gaping at Beckett.

She moved, and reality crashed over him. He had to lunge forward and grab her elbow to keep her there, but it set off flares up and down his spine and across his shoulders.

"See?" his mother said, turning to the nurse. "That's what I'm talking about."

Castle groaned, sinking towards Kate, drawn up double with the hot surge of pain. His fingers were talons around her elbow; he could _not_ let her go.

"Dad. What's going on?" Alexis cried out.

"N-nothing," Beckett stammered, her hand at his grip, trying to shake him off.

"Everything," he croaked. "No, don't leave. Kate-"

"Dad, you need to lie back-"

"Please, Mr. Castle," the nurse chimed in, moving to his shoulder. It was his good side, and she was attempting to push past Kate, but he wasn't letting her go, and this was the worst timing ever. "I'm here to change your IV. The pain will subside soon. You should rest."

"No," he got out. "Makes me tired. Damn it, Kate-"

"Richard!"

Beckett was trying to pry up his fingers; he thought he might be hurting her. "Kate, _stop_ ," he said harshly, staring past the nurse, past his daughter hovering, his mother chiding him. Only her, only Beckett.

"What's going on?" Alexis said. "What are you doing? Gram, what-"

"Kate, I love you."

The whole room went still.

He dropped his hand from her arm, a flood of exhaustion washing over him so that he slumped against the side of the railing. Beckett caught his good shoulder before he could fall back, and then she and the nurse controlled his descent. He was too wiped out to care.

"Stay," he told her, throat working. Something bad was happening across his shoulders, the foam wedge not quite keeping the pressure off, and black spots popped up across his vision.

"Aren't you going to _say_ something?" Alexis hissed. Vaguely, he felt Beckett jump, and then saw his mother, from the corner of his eye, wrap her arm around Alexis's shoulders.

Castle grunted as the nurse repositioned him to get at the IV in his arm, but he tangled his fingers in Beckett's blazer pocket, keeping her there. He turned his head - far as he could manage - and pierced his daughter with a look. He hoped it pierced - he was having trouble keeping in the here and now.

"She already said it," Castle grumbled. "Now leave her alone. Better - better be here when I wake up."

And then the spots bled together and swamped him, and he was out.

 **X**

"You're here," he sighed.

She jerked at his words, and her head turned towards him. She was alone in the room; it was dark again. She was wearing the same clothes, though she'd taken off her blazer and draped it over the empty cot by the window.

"I'm here," she said. Her face was in shadows, but her voice was soft with weariness.

Castle swallowed past the raw feeling in his throat and tried to shift towards her, to look at her, but his body wouldn't cooperate. Beckett slowly sat forward and took his hand, propping her arm on the bedside railing and resting her chin there.

She looked heartbreakingly young. He felt old.

"No, don't," she said. Her hand released his and laid over his chest, stilling him. Felt good, the weight of her arm against his sternum. "Rest, Castle."

His eyes were heavy, but he shifted his head on the pillow just enough to look at her. "Don't think he'll come again tonight."

"Who?" she whispered.

"Smith."

"That's not who I'm here for."

Oh.

 _Oh_. He grinned and lifted a heavy had to cover hers, tangling their fingers. "You said it first."

She huffed a breath and leaned her cheek against her arm on the railing. "No, Rick. You did."

"No, you-"

She pressed her fingers into his sternum and he shut up, blinking slowly as he battled exhaustion. Her lips were crooked at this angle but even at that, he could tell it wasn't a smile. She looked sad.

He must have said it when he'd gotten shot.

"Oh," he murmured. "I don't remember that so it doesn't-"

"It counts to me," she said, rubbing her fingers under his and across the thin material of the hospital gown. "It counts, and don't you dare take it away from me."

"No," he said immediately. "No, I won't."

She laid her cheek back against her arm and watched him, and he just watched her back, struggling to stay awake. Stay with her. Keep his eyes open. He so badly wanted to keep his eyes open.

Her fingers stroked very softly at his sternum, lulling, comforting, but he didn't want to go. He wanted her to explain - everything, why now and what she was thinking and why did she look so sad. He wanted to spill it all out, all the things he'd been thinking about and the ways he'd seen her and how beautiful she was.

"You're so pretty," he sighed.

Kate laughed, lifting her head, lifting an eyebrow, all of it. He winced as he realized what he'd said, how artless it was, but she shifted forward, rising over the railing. Her hand on his sternum for balance was almost too much, but it was worth the kiss she dusted on his forehead.

"You can do better than that," he whined.

"Yes," she murmured against his skin. Her lips withdrew so he could see her eyes. "I can do better, but you can't."

A grumbling laugh was tugged from his chest and he gripped her hand, felt the threat of pain somewhere stirring, dark and deep.

She smiled as she sank back to the bedside railing. Her eyes were still eternity pools, denying entry to her thoughts, but softer now. Maybe it was just the pain medication. Maybe he just wanted things to be different.

Her hand slid out from under his, fingers leaving a burning trail over his ribs as she sat back in the chair once more. He let out a disappointed breath and tried to whine for more. But it didn't work; he could barely keep his eyes open.

From the shadows swathing the chair, he heard her voice, wry and quiet. "We'll do better when you're awake enough to appreciate it."

 **X**


	9. Chapter 9

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

There was a rare and soft quiet in the room. He was just enough weighed down by the pain medication that he didn't mind drifting here, watching her through his partially-closed lids.

Kate was asleep in the chair, her head turned his way and her cheek against the tall back. Her hair curtained the side of her face, but he could see the dark shadow of her lashes and the part of her lips. Her throat was an ivory column leading to the sharp rise of her collarbone, the rise and fall of her chest, the shimmering fabric of her loose shirt.

Her palm was up on her knee, as if she'd pulled the chair close enough to hold his hand and then fallen asleep in the middle of reaching for him. Ambient light glowed around her, a grey morning through the window, her body framed by that pale pearled color of coming storms.

He came awake again when the rain started, a soft drizzle against the window. His eyes opened and he didn't know what time it was, only that Kate still slept. The rain was pleasant, and for once the drugs seemed to hold him entirely in their soft fingers, keeping him subsumed in painlessness.

The tap of rain, Kate's face in the grey light, sleeping together.

Castle's grin slipped slowly across his face, a huff of breath like laughter, and then he heard the door snick open. He turned his head, but his reactions must have been delayed, the sound triggering his response, because he saw Alexis already standing at the foot of his bed.

"Alexis," he said, gravel in his voice.

Her face brightened. She turned to look at him, her eyes dragging away from the view of Kate in the chair and up to him.

"Stop it," he mumbled, flexing his fingers for her. Drugs kept him from extending his reach, but Alexis caught on fast and came to him, taking his hand.

He sighed and squeezed her hand, trying to put some strength into it. Alexis dropped in close to his side and kissed his cheek. "Sorry, Dad."

He was just enough drugged that the words came out of his mouth. "Don't hate her."

"No, Daddy, I don't hate Detective Beckett." She patted his shoulder and sank a hip against the bedside railing.

"But?" he got out, marbles in his mouth. It was hard to stay here. "I hear a but after-"

"But you got _shot_ ," she hissed. Alexis came in close, kissed his cheek again as if in apology. "You got shot, Dad. Nothing else is important."

"What about school," he mumbled. "Did you - when are exams?"

"I don't - I've got them rescheduled."

"Good girl," he whispered. He was exhausted. He ought to have a conversation with her; things were murky and they shouldn't be. "Go to school."

"Dad, I will. When you're better."

"Long time," he sighed. "You finish the school year."

"Of course, Dad. Of course. It can be arranged around-"

"School's important. I got shot; don't make me _make_ you-"

"Okay, Daddy," she whispered, close to his face, hands framing his face. "Okay. You got shot. I'll do anything you like."

"Be nice to Beckett."

"I am. I will be. I'm being nice; I promise." Her fingers stroked through his hair and down his face; she was crying.

"Alexis," he got out, trying to lift a hand and catch hers. "Pumpkin, it's all right. Gonna be fine."

"You were shot," she cried out. She was already swiping the tears from her cheeks. "It's just hard to - but worse for you, I know; I'm being selfish. I'll be nice to Detective Beckett."

Castle groaned and brought his arms up, caught Alexis around the shoulders and dragged her into him. "It's okay. Okay. Come here, Alexis, right here, pumpkin."

She collapsed into the bed; he held back the grunt of pain and kept his teeth clenched, fighting it off. Alexis curled an arm over his torso and laid her head there, and he could feel the tears she was trying to sniff back.

"It's okay," he told her, feeling the pain awake in his back. "I got shot, but it's okay now."

Alexis's shoulders heaved under his arm. "I just - can't help thinking about it. Over and over. You were shot; you were shot. What were you _doing_?"

"I know," he mumbled, trying to tighten his arm around her. "I know."

"Why would you do that, why would you-"

"Wasn't trying to get shot," he reassured her. "Not trying to."

She shuddered out a breath and her arm squeezed, made the pain ripple up and down his spine. He lifted his hand anyway, combed through the bright flame of her hair, trying to comfort her where he wasn't sure there was any comfort.

"I do like her," Alexis said quietly against his torso.

"Thought you did." He felt very tired now; the energy it had taken to reassure his daughter was gone, drained out of him. "Was sure you did. Important to me."

Alexis shifted against him and lifted her head. His hand dropped heavy to the bed and he couldn't find it in him to lift it again.

His eyes were closing.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"I'll be nice," she whispered. Her dry lips against his forehead. "Gram already threatened to bring her theatre company to the loft for practices if I wasn't."

His lips curled into a grin that fell too fast, his facial muscles failing him.

Alexis. Her arms thin around his chest as she hugged him. "Just don't get shot, Daddy, please. Just don't get shot again."

 **X**

He swam back to consciousness at the commotion in the room: a clatter of a tray, the greasy scent of food, his daughter talking, Beckett's low tone of response, the nurse, shoes on linoleum, a door shutting.

He could only get his eyes half-open, lashes still tangled together and obscuring his vision. But he saw Alexis sitting back on the cot with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs, saying something earnestly.

Beckett was sitting beside her, a foot of space between them, her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward, her back bowed, her head nodding. The sound of her voice carried easily to him, though he couldn't make out any words. Still. They were talking together.

They were talking.

Castle closed his eyes and relaxed again, sliding off into darkness.

 **X**

He woke on a shout and the room was lit like a nightmare. Strobed by blue-white, ghastly. A face came into his vision, Beckett, Kate; it was Kate, _snap out of it, Castle._

He grunted as the awareness jolted through him, ragged edged, and he struggled to grasp time, place. It was a thunderstorm. Lightning licked the room. Mid-day darkness, no sun.

A hand on his shoulder. "Just a dream," she was saying, close to his ear. He couldn't see her any more. He couldn't make sense of what he saw. "Just the storm."

"No, I don't know," he rasped. His throat was raw. The world didn't make sense, streaked and disjointed. "Confused."

"It's Thursday," she said. Her voice was close; the fall of her hair. She sounded like she was giving him a report on a homicide. "Thursday after the funeral on Saturday. You were shot. They've put you on your side to keep pressure off your back. Feel this? Foam wedge-"

"Oh." The world clicked into place, upside down. His cheek against a starched pillow, his chest to the foam, half on his stomach this way, the bed flat. The ski slope of her shin where she sat in the chair, legs crossed. "Thursday?"

"I took the day so Alexis would go to school," she said quietly.

"Oh, good," he groaned, closing his eyes. His breath was shallow, hard. Less drugs now, he thought, and the anesthesia was out of his system. "School. That's important."

Her fingers combed through his hair and his shoulders drooped, his breathing beginning to even out.

"Was it a dream?" she murmured. "Or just the storm."

"Don't remember," he sighed. No idea. Just - awake.

Just awake, and another flash of lightning was followed by a rippling roll of thunder, like the whole sky was being torn in half. He barely moved, lulled by her fingers, lulled by the sound of rain.

"How many times you have to tell me that?" he mumbled. "The whole thing."

"Only twice today," she said, and there was a little amusement in her sound. "A few times last night. Alexis wrote it down on a card by your bed, just in case. I'm not sure she trusts me."

"Sorry," he slurred. He always made a terrible patient; he was whiny and moody when he was sick. He complained, and bitterly, and he liked for everyone to be around him, to cater to him, to baby him.

"No, it's fine, Rick. Just the drugs, make you confused at first. It'll be fine."

This was going to be bad, the two of them. He was going to annoy her; he wouldn't even be able to help it. Such a bad idea, such terrible timing.

But her fingers in his hair were so nice. Just so nice.

"It's okay," she said softly. "Go back to sleep."

He struggled to give voice to it before he fell asleep again, before confusion. "Don't let me... don't hate me, Beckett."

"No," she whispered, a hum in her throat. "Never."

 **X**


	10. Chapter 10

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

Beckett was nothing but an observer for this meeting, allowed to stay by dint of having already been here when they'd started. At his hospital bedside.

The doctor laid a comforting hand to Martha's shoulder. "All of this is with the hope that he's getting better as-"

Martha threw up her hands. "But he is _clearly_ not getting better."

Beckett gripped the sides of her chair and strove not to interrupt.

"I understand you're concerned." The doctor held out placating hands, even-toned. "We've had to adjust his pain medication, and with that comes a little guesswork. We don't know how-"

"But we do know," Martha spat out. "He wakes shouting. When he wakes at _all_."

Beckett swallowed hard but she glanced to Castle. His face was round and swollen with the new sedatives. His fingers had swelled so much they had to refit the pulse-ox.

"Yes, ma'am. It's a process. I know it seems bad right now, but he aggravates the wound too much when he's awake."

Beckett frowned, tracing her eyes over the lines of Castle's back _. Shouldn't traction take care-_

"But shouldn't lying him on his stomach take care of that?" Martha said. Her skirt swirled as she whipped back around to the hospital bed. "He's immobile. He can't move!"

 _Exactly_ , Beckett thought, turning her head slightly to look at the doctor. Throwing her support behind Martha, however surreptitiously.

"We hope it does. All of this is to keep him still, keep infection from the wound."

"Infection?" she blurted out. Martha shot her a look that made Beckett freeze.

Not her place. Wasn't her place. Martha didn't need her help; Martha didn't _want_ her butting in. Beckett wasn't the one making these decisions for him.

"We can't let the incision site get infected. We had to widen the entry wound to do the delicate work of extracting those bullet fragments. Plus the repair to torn muscle and ligaments - the blood vessels. It was a long surgery. We can't have the incision getting infected."

"But these drugs are clearly _hurting_ him," Martha protested. "He's confused, he can't stay awake, we've had to tell him again and again where he is and what happened."

Kate trembled, crossed her arms over her chest to keep herself still. If she had to tell him again, she would tell him again. And again. Until he remembered. Until he _believed_ her when she said she loved him too.

It didn't matter that he forgot. That he was confused. He still loved her. That hadn't changed.

It wouldn't change.

"Ms. Rodgers, we're doing the best we can. We'll look at adjusting his medication, talk it over with the specialist. For now, we'd like to keep him sedated until the incision site is well on its way to healing. We don't want to run into any obstacles so soon after surgery."

Just like that, Martha gave up. She threw up her hands and stalked away from the doctor, and the man had the grace to turn and leave the room. Or escape.

Beckett had no escape. She faced the full ire of his mother head on and hoped she hadn't done the wrong thing, speaking up.

"You couldn't have spoken up a little?" Martha said, waving to the closed door. "You were here this morning when he-"

"But I thought you said-" Beckett blinked and shot a look at Castle, but he was still asleep. "I didn't want to presume." It sounded weak even to herself. Didn't matter what Martha had said during a moment of grief and worry; Beckett should have known.

"Katherine, seriously! Don't be ridiculous. You're an NYPD detective. I'm just his mother. Your word lends much more weight."

Beckett let out a breath, bitter disappointment in her chest. "You're right, Martha. I should have said something. I should have backed you up."

"Next time," Martha threatened, a kind of forced joviality to her words, her smile. She wagged her finger in Kate's face. "Don't let me down again."

"Of course not," she husked. Her heart was pounding. She hadn't been called out since-

Castle.

"Fine. We'll make him understand next time. Don't worry, darling. You can go. I have the watch!"

Beckett released her fingers from the chair and stood stiffly. She was on-call this weekend and she would stay with him while she could, at least until she caught a case. But first she had to make it through one more weekday in the bullpen. She was already pushing it; she was going to be late, and a new Captain of the Twelfth was set to arrive any day now. She couldn't keep doing this.

But Castle.

He'd woken four times in the night while she'd been here alone with him, and each time he'd been confused and dreaming, or maybe just reliving the gunshot. He hadn't remembered. Her or anything else really. He'd tried to roll onto his back and she'd had to keep him still. She had said _I love you_ into the shell of his ear and he'd gasped and tried to push up against the mattress.

She had been forced to stop saying it; he was always so taken aback, so _surprised_ , that he tried to get to her. He tried to move.

She'd only been making it worse.

"Katherine, darling, you're going to be late for work. You need to go - go catch the man who did this to my son."

Beckett flushed pink with shame, turning away from Martha and bending over Castle to hide it. She kissed the corner of his eye and smoothed her fingers down his nape, avoiding the bandage, avoiding Martha until she had herself under control again.

She wasn't going to catch the man who had shot Castle. He'd made a deal for their lives instead. And now going in to the Twelfth wasn't at all appealing - it was only salt in an open wound.

She could do nothing; her hands were tied.

 **X**


	11. Chapter 11

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

Beckett checked her phone as she got out of her car, then leaned back in to flip the dash computer off, hoping just to keep the console in shadows. She shouldn't have brought the precinct's car to the hospital, not after the new Captain ripped into her whole squad for 'misuse of resources', but she had so little time lately.

They'd caught a case, and she had maybe two hours to visit before she had to go back and wheedle information from weekend-shift employees who had no authority to pull records or answer questions.

Wonderful.

Becket scraped her hair back and turned off her phone as she rounded the corner, moving up the wheelchair ramp towards the side doors. With her phone dark and not vibrating notifications every five seconds, her shoulders began to loosen and she quickened her gait.

Inside the cool air conditioning of the hospital, she checked the brilliant interactive menu screens - habit, that was all; she knew exactly where Castle was - and she moved to the bank of elevators. She pushed the call button and rolled her head on her neck, shivering as a gust of cool air swirled down from the vents.

The elevator opened and Beckett stepped on, pushing the number for Castle's floor. She leaned against the chrome panel and closed her eyes, letting the jerk and sway of the creaking old elevator carry her away from the Twelfth and its snarl of entanglements.

Castle.

Finally.

She took a breath in slowly and straightened; she had timed it just right because the doors opened onto his floor and she walked out - with some serenity at least.

His doctor was standing at the nurses' station before a computer, hen-pecking his notes into the terminal. When she spotted him, Beckett switched direction, hoping to seize an opportunity. But one of the nurses must have warned him (and yes, Beckett knew she was being paranoid), because he entered one last keystroke and disappeared around the corner.

Beckett growled and moved to follow him, intending on getting answers about Castle's pain medication, but when she came into the hall, he was gone. There was a closed door marked _Employees Only_ and he must have gone through there. Stymied.

She scraped a hand through her hair and pivoted on her heel, going back to the nurses' station. She approached the male nurse sitting behind the desk and interrupted his work with a polite clearing of her throat.

He glanced up, gave a forced smile. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, please. I'm Detective Beckett. My partner is in Room 547? Richard Castle."

"Nice to meet you, Detective. I heard there was an investigation. Did you-"

"I appreciate your interest, but I'm having trouble tracking down Dr. Smithers. When you see him again, can you tell him I'd like to talk to him about Richard Castle's pain management?"

"Dr. Smithers is on rounds right now," the man explained. As if that could explain. But no, it didn't explain _anything_.

"All right," she said carefully, pulling out one of her cards from the back of her phone case. "Can you have Dr. Smithers call me if I'm not in the room when he comes around?"

"Call you." The nurse dutifully, if reluctantly, took the card.

"Richard Castle," she said again. "His mother is his health care agent while he's unconscious, but he _has_ been conscious - which makes it hard to get with the doctor and make good decisions. He's been very confused. And the medicine is only keeping him that way-"

"Look, I'll tell him you want to talk. But I can't change or alter his prescribed pain medication."

"No, I'm not asking you to do that," she said, letting out a breath. "We just need to have a conversation. His mother and the pain management specialist, the internist, and the surgeon. Please let them know. This needs to be done. Also..." Beckett gritted her teeth, forced it out. "The officers stationed outside his room have been pulled."

The nurse had the grace to look surprised, but he smoothed that over quickly. "Did you find the man who shot-"

"No." Beckett stood up straighter, chafing at all the lost time standing here talking to a nurse who couldn't help. "No. But resources are - being re-allocated. Please have Dr. Smithers contact me or Martha Rodgers about Richard Castle. It's important that the drugs not cause this kind of confusion."

She stepped away from the nurses' station and moved quickly down the hall, heading for Castle's room; she didn't want to waste any more of her time here. She only had two hours before she had to get back to the Twelfth and face down her new Captain, to _fight_ for the manpower and overtime hours to protect Castle.

The case was sunk, had been from the beginning.

What she wanted was to keep him safe while he recovered - just keep him safe.

She needed to keep him safe.

 **X**

Kate had only been in the room for thirty minutes when Alexis showed up. Beckett fought back her disappointment - such bitter disappointment - and stood up from the chair.

"Alexis," she said warmly. Or tried for it anyway.

Alexis had her backpack on her shoulder, her hair in a braid like she use to wear when Beckett had first met her. She looked young and vulnerable and yet - frightening.

When had Beckett become afraid of his daughter?

(When it had started to _matter_.)

Beckett gestured towards the chair she had just vacated but Alexis shook her head, apparently as uncomfortable with finding Kate in the room as Kate was with Alexis coming in. The girl glanced around as if looking for a place for herself, and she finally settled on the cot that Martha had used in the beginning; it was still set up.

Beckett had used it once or twice so far. She watched Alexis shrug off her backpack and pull out materials, and she realized the girl was going to study here.

Okay. Well. Great.

"You can have the chair," Alexis said after a moment. She had crossed her legs on the cot and she balanced a textbook on one thigh. "The mattress lets me spread out."

Beckett sighed and moved around to sit, but now her back was to Alexis; it felt awkward. What else could she do? She had wanted only to sit close to Castle with her hand on top of his, calming him when he woke confused, soothing him back to sleep.

Sometimes they talked. Briefly. Sometimes he smiled at her and their eyes held, just that connection they had - until he slipped back under again.

Now she felt stupid. Out of place.

Beckett shifted the chair so she could see Alexis now too, crossing her legs and sitting up straighter. But she snaked her hand through the railing and curled her fingers over Castle's forearm, unwilling to disconnect, but she put her attention on his daughter.

"So. What are you studying for?"

"Physics," Alexis said shortly. But she lifted her head, the eye contact softening her answer.

Beckett nodded, though she barely remembered her own junior year physics class. "How's it going so far?"

Alexis's response was one heartbeat too slow, and Beckett got it immediately.

 _Shut up, Kate._

"Um, it's not going so great," Alexis said, giving her a frank look. "It's pretty complicated actually."

Which meant, _shut up and let me study._

"Of course," Kate said, nodding, keeping it minimal.

Alexis frowned, smoothed her hand over her notebook. "Most of the exam will be on thermal physics - so it's rates of heat transfer and temperature change. A lot of formulas."

Beckett nodded, but her fingers curled around his arm, her spine stiffening in the chair. She didn't open her mouth - no point in prolonging a conversation no one wanted to be part of.

"It's just that this is my hardest-" Alexis shook her head, cutting herself off. "Physics and I are not friends. And I'm already really - um - distracted."

Beckett nodded again, and she let the silence creep over them, bowing out as gracefully as she could. Alexis was trying, it seemed, and they'd talked a little a few days ago, but it was obvious Beckett had ruined Alexis's nice studying retreat by being here.

She understood that; she would just sit here quietly, not bothering Alexis, and hopefully the girl could get her studying done.

Because Beckett was _not_ leaving.

 **X**


	12. Chapter 12

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

Beckett checked her phone again, chafing at the delay. No doctor, no message - though she had to keep it on today since she was on-call, and she hated having that tether to her new Captain and the woman's whims of command. For a Saturday morning, it was strangely murder-free.

Maybe the boys were taking the hit for her.

She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, letting out a breath, but it was no good. She was restless. She knew her time was almost up; she'd get a call sooner rather than later and she'd have to go back to the Twelfth. She'd accomplished exactly nothing. The doctor had never even-

"Beck..."

Kate jerked upright, eyes flashing open and darting to the man lying on his stomach in the hospital bed. "Castle?" she whispered, on the edge of her seat. She reached out and touched his elbow.

"Beck... Beckett," he slurred. His eyes came open slowly, like it was painful, and she stood up and came nearer, touching his hand.

"Castle?" She watched as his eyes tracked to her face, how his confusion cleared like a fog burned off by the sun. "Rick."

"Mm, that's me."

She smiled, couldn't help touching his forehead, brushing the hair out of his eyes. "Need a haircut." She let her thumb bump over the ridge of his eyebrow. "How you feeling?"

"Drunk. No. Hungover."

She chuckled softly, gave in to the urge to lean over him, softly kiss his temple. "Just the pain meds. Should clear in a minute if you can stay with me."

"Always." His eyes locked on hers, something bewildered in his gaze that meant he didn't understand. "You - you okay, Beckett?"

"Just fine," she said easily. "Took my bullet there, partner. I didn't even get a scratch."

He blinked, like he was struggling to figure her out. Last time, it had been just like this, the same conversation, but she'd said she loved him and he'd nearly come off the bed trying to reach for her.

Not this time. Let her actions speak for her now, let him stay awake with her long enough to have some sense. And then she'd tell him all over again.

If he could stay awake.

"Not comfortable," he mumbled. "Don't sleep on my stomach."

"Have to for now," she told him, letting herself stroke the hair off his forehead. She ran her fingers over his scalp and he sighed, eyes closing. "Just for now, Castle. Take the pressure off the wound."

"That feels good."

"Yeah?" she murmured back. His voice sent sensation down her spine, and her fingers scratched lightly in response.

Castle purred. Like a kitten.

Her smile grew wider. "Gonna make you feel really good, soon as you get out of here."

His eyes snapped open.

She bit her bottom lip, but she leaned in and kissed the corner of his eye. "Heal up, Castle. Wanna get you home."

"Yeah," he croaked. She already felt him shifting, moving for her, and she pressed his uninjured side down into the mattress, chastising herself for being so stupid. No more teasing. Not like that.

"Stop, hey. Castle. Settle down. Can't heal if you're pulling out stitches."

"You - but you..." He was struggling to find words, and she could see it.

"But I want you to stay still. My fault. I shouldn't have done that. Just lie down." She stroked through his hair, pushing it off his forehead, but she knew that wasn't what they did, wasn't how they acted with each other.

She loved him, but she didn't _get_ to love him. Not quite yet.

"Kate," he said. His confusion colored his whole demeanor.

But she couldn't not; her thumb rubbed away the lines on his forehead. "Hey, it's going to be fine. Can you stay awake? If you can stay awake, then we can talk until there's a body. I'm on call this weekend."

"I'm awake," he gritted out. "Talk."

"What do you remember?"

"Shot. Got shot. And... you. Waking up to you. Oh, I made Alexis - think I made her cry."

More than he'd had last time. "Not that bad," she promised. "We've talked. A little."

"I told her to stop being mean." Castle's eyelids drooped and then flared open again. He snaked out an arm and gripped her jacket, hard. "Stop being mean to you. To you. Kate."

"You did?" She hunched over him to see his eyes. He let out a little breath and released her jacket, but he grabbed her wrist instead, kept her close.

"Hey," he said, like he was waking up all over again.

"Hey," she smiled. She found herself skimming the bones of his face, relieved at how the swelling seemed to have gone down. She wondered if Martha had finally gotten in contact with the doctor earlier, if all of her bluster at the nurses' station had accomplished something. Maybe there'd been no phone call because Martha had already talked to them.

"Feel weird," he mumbled. "How long you been here?"

"A couple hours."

"You're on call. Saturday. Remember that now. It's all in little pieces. I feel weird."

"I think it's just the drugs. You're on antibiotics and pain medication. The nurse told me the anesthesia affects everyone differently, but maybe it's settled out now."

"I gotta get out of here," he grumbled. "I just - feel thick. Dumb."

"Hey, it'll be soon." Kate curled her fingers at his nape. "It'll be soon. Another few days. They just wanted to be sure the wound wasn't getting infected. You had a fever."

"A fever. When... when was that?"

"Tuesday and Wednesday," she murmured. "You - said something to me about - about a man-"

"Smith!" He flailed out at her, and Beckett caught his arm, tried to keep him still, putting her weight into his hip to keep him on the mattress.

"Castle," she hissed. "Castle, you _can't_ move like that. Focus."

He groaned and went still; she knew it was hurting him. Could tell by the tension in his body. Not enough pain medication this time, but maybe it was preferable to the doped oblivion of before.

"Castle, you told me this man Smith-"

"A deal. I made a deal. For our lives. You can't-"

"Yes, I know. I know, Castle. I've dropped the investigation."

He went still again, slumping into the mattress.

"Castle. Could you have - dreamed him?" she whispered. "You had a fever and-"

"No!" he yelled. Struggling up again-

"Okay, okay," Beckett said, trying to placate him, keep him still. "Castle, so help me, if you don't _stop moving_ -"

He collapsed back against the bed and she lifted a shaky hand to her head, scraped her hair back off her face.

She should have kept her mouth shut.

"Investigation has been closed anyway," she said bitterly. "New Captain. She took all of my manpower and resources. So don't worry, Castle. You're safe. I'm - safe. We're all safe." She hoped. God, it was _hope_. Hope that this man Smith would do what he said he would.

But she wasn't going to upset Castle. Not right now.

His fingers released her belt loop; his hand dropped. "Safe," he got out. "Stay. Beckett. I'm - gonna fall asleep."

She lifted his hand from where it dangled over the side of the bed and she carefully replaced it on the mattress. "I'll stay until you fall asleep."

"Stay," he mumbled.

She glanced at her phone; she'd already stayed too long. She was on-call and she had no idea when she'd have to go. She couldn't make promises.

"Kate."

"Okay," she whispered, promising anyway. "Okay, I'll stay."

 **X**


	13. Chapter 13

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

Beckett crossed her arms and stared at the white board, her mind clicking over fruitlessly. She lifted the photo of their current murder victim and below it was Castle's face; it made her guts clench. The row of current suspects also had hidden information beneath their faces, and she flipped the photos one at a time, memorizing the details even though she knew them by heart.

They still had Castle's shooting - her _attempted_ shooting, really - up on the white board, despite Captain Gates's orders. All the little details, the wild goose chases and the dead ends, all of it strung underneath the case they'd caught this weekend. Papered over.

"Espo, did you talk to that fire inspector yourself?" she asked finally.

Esposito gave her a grunt and she turned to look at him. He was not happy with her. She had basically called his integrity into question, and she realized it belatedly.

"I talked to him myself," he said, hands on his hips. "It wasn't arson."

"It's just _too_ convenient," she muttered. Bank records up in smoke.

"If Captain Gates knows you've still got that up," Ryan said, approaching furtively. "Boss, you're going to get suspended."

"She wouldn't dare," Beckett said, narrowing her eyes. "What about the statements from-"

"Detective Beckett."

She stiffened, glanced past Esposito and the desks in the bullpen, found Captain Gates's sharp eyes upon her. "Yes, sir," she said, swiftly lowering her hand to hide the marks on the white board.

"In my office, Detective."

Beckett let out a sigh, ignored the wide eyes Ryan threw her way, shoved Espo's shoulder as he bullied the walkway.

She had a feeling that Captain Gates knew exactly what she was doing.

 **X**

When she sneaked onto the unit that night, long after visiting hours were over, she found Castle asleep in his room.

But lying on his back again. It felt like a victory, and she really needed one today.

She let out a breath and picked up his chart from the holder just inside the doorway, used the light from the hall to read the last few pages. Mostly scrawled notes and abbreviations, but she took out her phone and snapped a quick photo, texted it to Lanie asking for her help in translation.

She put the chart back quietly, closed the door so that the nurse wouldn't come looking. Beckett slinked inside his room and sat down in the chair beside his bed, letting out a breath. The room was in soft shadows, comforting, and the gold of the lamp near the head of the bed cast his face in forgiving light.

She leaned in, pressing her cheek to the top of the railing to study him.

Shadows were a kindness, though she thought his face looked less swollen. His cheeks weren't shiny any longer, his lashes rested lightly.

It was best at night, when his mother and daughter wouldn't walk in suddenly or haunt the room with their busy activity and bustling conversation. It was best when she had him to herself.

She could pretend there was no confusion. She could touch his face and kiss the crinkle of his eye.

And then, of course, he would wake up. And the confusion would be back, or the pain. And everything was so much harder to navigate.

She knew that she was setting herself up for failure, imagining an easy life for them in the dark, but she couldn't help it.

Beckett finally sat back in the chair, leaning her head against the raised cushion. She closed her eyes, let the quiet night sink into her.

"I thought we had a deal."

Beckett jumped to her feet and spun around, drawing her weapon in the same heartbeat.

A man stood in the open doorway, hallway light spilling in around him so that his face was in deep shadows. He slowly raised his hands. "Detective Beckett."

"Who are you?" she commanded.

"You were supposed to stop investigating."

Her stomach clenched. "I said, _who are_ -"

"You might know me as Mr Smith. Mr Castle and I are already acquainted."

Beckett lowered her aim just slightly, sighting the man in the doorway. "What do you want?"

"I believe I've already stated my intentions, Detective. I'm only trying to keep you both alive."

"How, exactly, did you think you could protect us?" she spat. She lowered the gun until it was pointing at the floor, ready to bring it up again if the silver-haired man so much as moved.

"Captain Montgomery was a friend of mine. He had a long-standing deal in place, but when he saw the way things were going, he sent me a package. I merely stepped in as his agent and-"

"I don't _know_ you," she hissed. "You're no friend of mine, no matter what you say about Montgomery. Who are these men? Who is behind all-"

"You know I can't tell you that."

Beckett ground her teeth and stepped past the foot of Castle's bed. She wanted him out of range, out of _view_ of this man who claimed friendship but withheld information. "Just tell me who it is. I can _stop_ this. I can-"

"It's not just you. It's the lives of Roy's wife and children. It's _his_ life, lying so vulnerable in that hospital bed. His daughter and mother. Your father. If you have connections, emotional ties, Detective, they can and will be used against you."

She dragged in a breath, thinking fast. "Whoever this is - his reach can't be that far. We have protection for witnesses. We have-"

"You're kidding yourself if you think you're beyond his reach, his _power._ No, Detective. This is the only option."

She growled in her throat and advanced on him, but Smith was already shaking his head. His hand shot out and caught her by the wrist of her firing arm, squeezed painfully so that her fingers instantly became numbness. "You don't want to do that."

Beckett snapped his hold and whipped her leg around to sweep him off his feet, but the older man crouched and caught her knee, twisted so that she grunted. Pain sizzled through her knee along her nerve endings.

Smith dropped her and stepped back; she had to clutch the wall for support, her knee tingling and buzzing with numbness. Beckett breathed hard through her nose and kept a wary eye on Smith, her gun still out, ready, but she wasn't sure she'd get off a clean shot. Her fingers were still uncooperative.

"If you can't _truly_ stop investigating, it will be someone much more able than myself who comes after you. You think a sniper at a cemetery - a man who is a _ghost_ , whom you can't even catch - you think that's going to be the last of them?"

"Just _let_ them come," she hissed. "I am ready for-"

"Right now, you're not ready for an old man with fast reflexes. And you know he-" Smith gestured to Castle "-makes you cautious."

She let out a noise and lurched forward, but her knee collapsed under her weight and her shoulder caught her balance against the wall. Desperation welled in her guts. "Just tell me who he is. Tell me. A name, anything-"

"If I do that, you're dead. And maybe you don't mind throwing your life away, and _his,_ the man who jumped in front of a bullet for you, but I made a promise to Roy that I'd protect Evelyn and those kids. So you _get it together_ , Detective, and you clean off that white board."

He spun around and left the room before she could even stand to follow.

 **X**


	14. Chapter 14

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

She was in a terrible mood, but Martha and Alexis were all bright smiles and bushy tails when Beckett walked into the room.

And Castle was awake. Loose t-shirt and cargo shorts, sitting on top of the covers. The bed railings had even been lowered.

"You're dressed," she blurted out.

He was grinning, fingers splaying for her, _come here_ in his eyes. "Disappointed?"

"Oh, no," she said, stepping forward as if called. "Quite the opposite, actually. Pathetic."

"Me? Pathetic?" he scoffed. He was upright and he was joking. "You're just-"

"What happened to _you_?" Martha tittered, intercepting Beckett's advance. "Darling, you looked to be in a towering rage when you came in." She caught Beckett's arm with a friendly squeeze. "Something with the case?"

Beckett ground to a halt, trapped by Martha and her bright concern. His mother looked worn thin, now that Beckett was close, her smile as painted on as her lipstick.

"Mother, let her go," Castle grumbled from the bed. "She's not here to be grilled on the case. She's here to kiss me."

Beckett jerked her gaze back to him, amusement practically overwhelming (and tasting like relief). She found she had control over her legs again, and they were moving her forward. She came to Castle's side and took his outstretched hand, and something about the strength of his grasp made her heart flip.

"I'm not here to kiss you," she said, rolling her eyes at him. She wasn't _now_ anyway.

"Well, then, what _are_ you here for?" Alexis said, hovering at Castle's other side.

"Alexis," Castle grunted. Beckett moved to step back, reflexively, but Castle's fingers tightened on hers, almost imperceptibly, though enough that it made her stop.

"I didn't mean it like that," Alexis huffed. "Really. I just meant, like Gram said, you looked upset. Like you had bad news you wanted to tell us. I only meant, what did you want to say?"

Beckett swallowed. "I got suspended."

"What?" Castle croaked. Her news had sent him rocketing forward, but he sank back again, grimacing. "Beckett." One of his eyes squeezed closed.

"Um. Someone tipped off the new Captain that I was investigating this case," she muttered. "With illegal overtime and resources that were supposed to have been allocated elsewhere."

"Is the case _closed_?" Martha sputtered.

"No," Beckett said quickly. Her throat closed up, that bad taste in her mouth. "No. But it's - come to a wall. And everyone knows the sniper is long gone."

"Let us _hope_ so," Martha sniffed. Her countenance seemed to crack in fine, small lines along her eyes and mouth. Beckett felt sick seeing the woman's worry, and Castle's hand squeezed tightly around hers. She knew he saw it too.

"I'm sorry," Alexis said, wincing. "I know you're looking out for us. How long are you suspended?"

Castle's thumb suddenly stroked over the back of her hand, as if in support, but it sent electric sensation cascading through her.

"How long?" she echoed. "Six week suspension."

"Six?" he growled. "That's not worth a six-week suspension. That's a measly slap on the wrist-"

"She's formerly with IAB," Beckett rushed in. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "She's a stickler for the rules."

Castle just stared at her. She could tell that he didn't buy it. Well, neither did _she_. She didn't buy it. Just yesterday it had been a dressing down in the Captain's office about setting a good example for the others on her team, and this morning it was an entirely new song.

But Alexis and Martha needed to believe it. And she had to _stop_. She had to stop investigating.

"Oh, come, come, Alexis. Let's leave them to talk shop," Martha interrupted suddenly.

Alexis scowled. "But I like talking shop. I like _knowing_ what's going on-"

"Alexis, darling," Martha insisted. Her fingers gathered along Alexis's shoulder, and she pulled her granddaughter with her, tugging for the door. "Richard, dear, we'll bring the discharge papers back with us now that you're dressed."

Beckett jerked her eyes back to Castle, her mouth dropping open.

His grin was slow but steady. "Did I forget to tell you? That's three good days in a row, Beckett. They're springing me from the joint."

 **X**

The look on her face was priceless. And worth keeping the news to himself for the last few days, though her visits had always been too brief for his liking.

He tugged on her hand again, wanting her attention (craving it, really; let's be honest). "Hey, can you be my wheel-man?"

Instead of the shimmer of amusement he'd been expecting, her face blanked. That terrible kind that shut him out. She sat suddenly in the chair beside his bed and untangled their fingers to press her face into her hands.

"I can't do this."

Castle froze, the whole of his inscape drenched in a bleak wash of nothing. "What?"

Beckett lifted her head with a jerk of awareness; her cheeks florid with some emotion he couldn't name. "Not you. This. What? Castle, don't you dare be the pessimist in this relationship. Not _now._ "

A dry chuckle rattled out of him. He laid his head back against the raised mattress. "No, Beckett. Of course not." Not a little amount of relief in it.

She stood up again and thwacked the side of his thigh, unspoken direction, and he promptly shifted what he could to give her space. She sank to the mattress at his hip and he risked the ire of the universe by laying his hand on her leg - she just happened to be sitting in the natural resting position for his hand anyway.

But she laid her hand on top of his and squeezed his fingers in a gesture that betokened support - her needing _his_ support - and she let him stay right there.

Awesome.

"I'm gonna get you killed," she said.

Castle gripped the fingers around his. "Okay, you can't be _that_ much the pessimist either, Beckett."

She turned a grim look towards him. "Or your daughter."

The words were like a stone dropped into him, sinking deep.

And she knew it. She shook her head. "I can't stop, Castle." Her fingernails dug into his skin, she was gripping him so hard. "I said I would and then I _didn't_. I made you promises and I broke them."

"So do it now. Start from-"

"Smith came to see me last night."

Castle jerked forward, groaning when his back seized and pushed him right down again. He lay panting, inelegant and cramped with a wave of pain, trying to clear his head of it. When it had dissolved again, he probed, "Smith. At your apart-"

"Here," she said.

She'd been here last night? "Creeping staring last night, Beckett?"

She ignored that. Her mouth set into a line. "Smith knew exactly what I've been doing. He has to have contacts in the precinct. Because when I went to work this morning, I got severely reprimanded, so severely that I'm suspended, and all I can think is _why can't I stop_?"

"Beckett, it's okay."

"It's not okay," she cried out. Her eyes closed, shoulders straightening as she got hold of herself. "You told me already. You said my _dad_ even came to you. We fought, Castle, because I can't see clear of this."

"There were just a lot of things," he started, "that seemed dire in the moment. But we're okay now, and-"

"I'm not okay. I couldn't go home last night because it's there too. I have the whole case up on my shutters, Castle. Everything."

"That's smart though. Keeping all your evidence before you. You taught me that, Beckett. This is a huge, complicated case, and it's not just my getting shot, it's your mom's-"

She whipped her head around, glaring at him. "I have newspaper articles about your shooting. Newspaper articles, Castle. What in the _world_ can a newspaper article tell me that I don't already know? What kind of _evidence_ is a morbid collection of your near-death?"

He opened his mouth, but for once words didn't seem to find him. "It's how you work," he said weakly. He reached out and gripped her elbow, as far as he could reach without making his back hurt. Her forearm was laid along his this way, her fingers at the crook of his elbow, stroking back.

"I'm going to get Alexis killed." She turned her head from him, sitting in profile with her back at his hip. "And Evelyn. And Montgomery's kids. Your mother. My dad." Her head swiveled to face him, and he saw in her eyes that same bleak inscape he'd felt only seconds ago. "You."

"You won't. You haven't."

She chewed on her bottom lip and lifted her gaze; he could see her trying not to give way to tears. She took in a shuddering breath. "I used to be so awful to my dad. I couldn't understand why he didn't just _stop drinking_. Just stop. It's a disease, blah blah blah, I knew that, but I didn't get it. Why don't you stop drinking?"

"Beckett."

"I'm obsessed, Castle." She was pressing her lips together so tightly they were white, bloodless, chapped and battered. Another breath that seemed as much a struggle as the words that came next. "I have a problem. I need help."

"Kate," he croaked. He damned the bed and his back and the bullet all to hell, and he leaned forward into her.

He caught her slow crumple, and it wasn't an embrace so much as him holding her up and her weight counterbalancing his lean. He did manage to wrap his arms around her, and she fisted his shirt, her face against his neck.

"Then we'll get you help, Kate," he said softly. The muscles in his back didn't even protest, content to let her prop him up. He could stay like this forever.

"I don't want you to die."

"No," he said, laughing a little because he couldn't help it. "I don't want to die either."

She was serious; this was serious, but she wasn't running away from him. She wasn't telling him that her mother's case was sacrosanct and he had to leave; she wasn't yelling at him that he was nothing more than a playground pest. It was so nice to lean into her and have her leaning into him.

"Are you falling asleep on me?" she muttered.

"I'm not sure," he answered, but his words were mumbled a little. It was just so wonderful to lean against her.

Her lips grazed his ear. "I'll be your wheel-man, Castle."

"Oh, good," he sighed. "We gotta find you a therapist, Beckett. Your communication is the worst."

She laughed lightly right against his jaw, and it felt healing - all that beautiful, purring amusement vibrating down to his bones.

 **X**


	15. Chapter 15 - Epilogue

**A Season in Hell**

* * *

 **X**

Kate Beckett stepped out of her therapist's office and into the long, nondescript hall. The door closed behind her automatically, swinging shut with its own weight and momentum. Locking her out.

But she didn't move.

One moment. Just a breath. She had begun allowing herself that much at least.

 _Learn to forgive yourself, Kate_.

She was, she was.

Learning, at least.

Today took two breaths, and a hand pressed against her sternum where the bullet should have struck but didn't.

She shrugged off the leather jacket, sweating in it, and then Beckett straightened up and walked down the hall. Towards her new life.

She was moving closer; she was, at least, always getting closer.

 **X**

Rick Castle jerked upright when she stepped off the elevator and out into the lobby. His movement caused the incision site to stretch, the scar thick across his back like a stiff rubber band. They had told him he couldn't feel the bullet fragment left inside his body, but he would swear he could.

Beckett did a double-take at seeing him, came to a stop with an entire marble floor between them. Warring emotions on her face.

He took the steps necessary to meet her, and she let out a tremulous breath, something sounding like his name in her undeniable cadence, though he didn't hear any actual sounds.

"Good evening, Detective."

"You're... how are you here?" she choked out.

Castle grinned and came to her side, offering his arm to her even as he took her jacket out of her hands. He draped the leather over his forearm and waited for her to take his elbow, which she did, threading her arm through his. There was hope spilling in her smile.

"Surprise," he said softly.

"I didn't expect you out and about today." Her walk was reluctant on his account, but he gave her his usual even stride, despite the constant strain of muscles in his back, the work and effort at normalcy.

"Came to pick you up," he began, "and take you to dinner."

"I thought I was coming over to the loft for dinner."

"Not tonight," he said. "Besides, you promised me that dinner before you knew your session would be switched. So I'm taking you out, and then I'm taking you home - your home, Kate. Where I will leave you." He leaned in and kissed her cheek, lightly, no pressure. "But I'm calling you in the morning."

She squeezed his bicep, and when he reached out and opened the lobby door for her, there was such gratefulness in her eyes. She went out ahead of him, and he got stuck holding the door for a pair of older women as they entered. He could see her closed-lip smile, two fingers playing with her mother's ring on its chain, watching him.

He knew her m.o.; he was no stranger to the way Beckett worked. If she kept attending therapy, he would give her room to breathe. It was only fair. They were both doing work for this relationship.

He resumed his place at her side, taking up her arm once more. She threaded close.

"How are you able to take me out?" she said then, a hitch in her stride as she paused for him to find her rhythm.

He met it, and they ambled, rather than walked, meandering. He couldn't yet _stride_. "I had therapy today too, you know."

"I know," she gave him, mouth quirking. "That's exactly what I mean. You're usually exhausted."

"Usually," he agreed. "But, you know, long-term the _point_ of physical therapy has always been to take you out."

She snorted, not delicate, entirely cop-like and scoffing, but he found himself grinning to hear it. And the ease with which she was meeting him, despite his unexpected arrival.

She usually went home and crawled into bed after therapy. He usually did too. Hers was mental, his was physical. But the effects were the same, he thought, and they coped the same. Worked.

"Are you telling me you no longer need physical therapy?" she said, very lightly bumping his hip.

He toppled. She saved him.

He growled at her for doing it, proving her point, but at the same time, he knew his irritation was with himself. He _missed_ walking the streets of New York with his detective, jostling her hip as she bumped his shoulder, the physicality of their partnership.

He missed things he hadn't ever done with her either, and that irritation was ready to drive him out of his skin.

Being shot sucked.

Once he was balanced again, and they were walking in the right direction, she slid her fingers down his arm and took his hand. An apology. He squeezed back and kept her hand. _Forgiven_.

"The PT did say he was bumping me down to one session a week," he offered. "And the only reason I did two was for this."

"Holding my hand?" she smirked. The twilight was causing her face to fall into shadows; the street lamps hadn't yet cut on. Stars winked green in her eyes.

"Yes," he said gravely. "Holding your hand. Picking you up at the door. Taking you to a nice restaurant. Walking you home. My end goal."

If he placed added emphasis on _walking_ , who could blame him?

A gunshot wound in the back meant every muscle that wrapped around his ribs and held him up felt as if they had been shredded and reattached incorrectly, the wrong insertion points, inadequate tendons, inflamed cartilage.

Sitting up was the first thing to master. Walking without pain had proven near-impossible.

But tonight. "First date, Detective."

Beckett startled to a stop.

He paused beside her, waiting, but she took his hand in both of hers and unfurled from his side, spinning like a dance move he hadn't thought of so that she turned to face him in the blue-green light of past-sunset. Her cheeks were pink; they were deep into summer.

"You've worked your ass off in PT," she began. "For... a painful walk to have dinner out with me after _my_ therapy? That's our first date?" _Which_ _I'm going to ruin_.

They both heard it.

He lifted his free hand to cup the side of her face. Even after nearly six weeks, she reacted like a woodland creature, going quiet, going still, wary.

He stroked his thumb against her bottom lip. She parted her mouth, already primed for his kiss. Their usual. They'd had many. This was no first.

"Promise me a kiss at the end of the night. No matter what. And I'll endure anything."

She caught her lip in her teeth and shook her head. But she stepped into him and eased her arms around his back, bracing him the way the therapist had shown her so that the strain was taken off some of his muscles.

He couldn't stop the groan of relief, the way his head dipped to her shoulder.

In the span of a moment, she had undone him.

"You shouldn't have to endure," she whispered at his ear. "I won't make you. That's the point of _my_ therapy."

 **X**

Stupid man. He had even dismissed the car service for the evening, determined to prove himself to her.

She didn't need proving. She believed in them.

She was taking him home.

Beckett flagged down a passing cab, three or four, really, before one finally pulled over and stopped for them. She opened the back door and braced it against her hip so that Castle could use the top of the car and the frame of the door to leverage himself down.

She followed him into the back and gave the loft address to the cab driver, and then she widened her feet and braced herself on the seat as the man pulled into traffic.

As usual, Castle grunted when the forward movement threw him off balance, but she caught his weight against her side and stabilized him.

"You're a crutch, Beckett," he grumbled. "A beautiful crutch, but-"

"I know," she sighed. "It's habit."

"You have to let me fall," he sighed mournfully. "I'll never be able to take you out if you keep taking me back home."

"Give it the summer and then we'll see," she murmured back, stroking her fingers over his knee. He still had the hang-dog look, so she leaned in and lightly kissed the corner of his mouth. "Hey, look at that. You don't even need dinner to get your kiss."

He hummed with something close to approval, and she missed the moment he snaked his arm around her, felt only the sudden tug into him.

Beckett laughed, catching herself with a hand on his thigh, but she was still tumbled against his chest. She teased his ear with her breath. "Mm, strong man. PT looks good on you."

She could practically _feel_ him flush. Pride and arousal both. And as his arm around her waist grew tighter, she realized why he'd been so adamant on taking her out tonight.

Nearly six weeks and they hadn't had sex. Oh, they had done quite a lot, but he just wasn't physically able to withstand her. And he thought _now?_

Was it because she was going back to work in a few days?

Kate reached up and twisted his ear with her fingers. He yelped and knocked her hand away, but she could feel the flex of his muscles against her side, the power and tension in his body, the vibrating need.

"What was that for?" he whined, rubbing his ear.

"Don't you dare think you're getting away with that," she snapped, playing it up for him. "I know what you were trying to do."

"What? Nothing." Wide blue eyes back at her, mask of innocence. "I was being romantic, Beckett."

"Rick Castle, I do _not_ have sex on the first date, no matter how romantic you think you are."

His laughter burst out of him, ruining the game, and his hand came up from her waist to grip the back of her neck.

It was both commanding and cradling at the same time. She had learned that quite a lot of Castle walked that fine, thrilling line between power and pliancy. Strength and weakness.

Domination and submission.

She was learning the art not of compromise but confluence. Two things at once, the perfect blending of elements. Therapy didn't work half as well as Castle himself, modeling the way in which they were to go. Forward progress even as they ceased investigation on her mother's case. Bend, don't break.

She wasn't disappointing her mom in more ways than just that one. She was discovering the wide-angled lens of justice rather than the narrow. It was called _life._

Castle, she was learning, was just as stubborn as she was.

As he was right now. Unwilling to let her go. Thank God for him.

His grip turned guiding, his mouth brushed along her jaw, the faint roughness of his cheeks so late in the day. (Oh, he already knew she liked it when he didn't shave before dinner, when he let the five o'clock shadow lengthen on his cheeks - oh how _much_ he already knew of what her body demanded-)

"Oh, yeah?" he murmured. "Wanna make a bet?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "I bet I put out before the first date ever happens."

His laughter was champagne bubbles in her stomach and the world turning upside down.

It was a better world this way.

 **X**


End file.
